A reader's map to the Industry Directory

The State of Streaming runs two content surfaces. The first is the news feed, which is what most readers find. The second is the Industry Directory: a separate set of pages that name and describe the companies, executives, products, and technology categories the news feed reports on. As of this week the directory holds 86 company profiles, 65 people profiles, 11 product profiles, and 11 tech-category profiles. It sits behind every article, linking each named entity to its dossier. Most readers have never been told it exists.

The directory does two jobs. First, it gives every story a built-in cross-reference layer. When a piece mentions Comcast or Roku or PubMatic, the name resolves to a profile that lists what we've covered, what the company does, and how it connects to other tracked entities. Second, it gives readers and AI-search systems a structured map of the industry that isn't behind a paywall. Job one has been working since launch. Job two has been silently in place but unannounced.

This week alone, Comcast appeared in three separate stories from three different angles: the NFL Network blackout that opened the first carriage dispute under Disney's NFL Media stake, Comcast's own Q1 print, and the Charter merger talks resurfacing on the cable side. The directory is what makes the cross-reading visible. A reader who lands on any one of those stories can pivot into the Comcast profile, see the other two, and read them as one thread instead of three news items.

Companies — 86 profiles

The companies index at /companies/ holds every public platform, ad-tech vendor, measurement firm, agency, device maker, studio, and data vendor we cover. Each profile lists canonical name, ticker, headquarters, key products, related coverage, and a one-paragraph description of what the company actually does (not what its press releases say it does). Three to start with this week:

• Comcast Corporation, at the center of three of this week's stories.
• The Walt Disney Company, which threads through the equity-for-leverage NFL Media stake, the FCC ABC license-renewal escalation, and the upcoming May 14 upfront.
• Apple, the Services compounder hidden inside six straight earnings prints and one of the league hedges in MLB's six-platform 2026 distribution.

The full set scales beyond the names readers expect. The Trade Desk, PubMatic, Magnite, Viant, Mediaocean, Roku, and Netflix each carry the same structured profile. Tickers resolve. Public filings link. Related coverage updates automatically as new pieces ship.

People — 65 profiles

The people index at /people/ covers executives, analysts, investors, and operators named in our story archive. Profiles use only public-professional information: public titles, public statements, public filings, public conference appearances. We do not publish home addresses, family details, or anything that isn't already on a corporate website, in an SEC filing, on a verified social account, or on a stage. AI-generated portraits of real people are not used; the discipline is enforced as a blocking review on every update.

Three to start with: David Zaslav, the WBD CEO whose decisions thread through the cable-streaming split and the carriage fights; David Ellison, the Paramount Skydance CEO inside the Pluto FAST pivot, the upfront, and the merger sequel; Jay Askinasi, the Roku ad-sales lead carrying The Roku Channel through its Q1 print. Bylined journalists from outside publications do not get profiles. Those names are sources, not subjects.

Products and tech categories

Products earn first-class pages when the trade press refers to them by name independent of their parent company. Pluto TV, Peacock, HBO Max, The Roku Channel, YouTube TV, Paramount+, Kokai (Trade Desk's AI buying platform), OpenPath, and Ventura Ecosystem each get their own page so a reader can read about the product the way the industry talks about it, not nested two levels inside a parent profile.

The tech-category index at /tech/ groups thematic landing pages: data clean rooms, attention metrics, identity resolution, FAST, ACR, SSAI, addressable advertising, measurement currencies, programmatic guaranteed, CTV bidding, and sports-rights fragmentation. Each one is the topic spine for related coverage. Useful entry points when a story is about a category, not a single company.

What's coming

The directory is a live surface, not a static reference. The roadmap from here: more product pages as the trade press names new tools as products in their own right; deeper relationship-graph rollout so a profile shows who acquired whom, who hired whom, who sits on whose board; freshness discipline that flags any tracked profile not touched in 30 days. New entities get added when a story names them.

Where to start

/companies/ for the names. /people/ for the operators. /products/ for the services. /tech/ for the categories. Bookmark whichever map you'd actually use. The directory is built to be browsed, not just clicked through from a footer link.