It’s not how you start. It's how you finish.

What can a few letters tell us about the changing media landscape?

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) gathered in April for their annual show.  N-A-B, for decades those three letters represented the golden age of Radio and Television, but in today’s streaming-first world, traditional broadcasters compete with YouTube creators, podcasts, and platforms that didn’t exist when the NAB first rose to prominence.

Before broadcasters began to take hold, the world of communication was embodied in the three letters of AT&T. Originally short for American Telephone & Telegraph, it symbolized the age of landlines and long-distance calling. Today, most people recognize the brand but rarely think about telegraphs or the monopoly-era phone system that built it.

From the wired communication that emerged RCA, the Radio Corporation of America.  RCA helped pioneer radio and television in the 20th century. Today, the brand survives mostly on licensed consumer electronics, far removed from its original role as a broadcasting powerhouse.

Fast forward to the 1980s and everybody wanted their MTV.  MTV has drifted from its roots. Music Television revolutionized pop culture by airing an endless string of music videos that supposedly, in the words of the Buggles, “killed the radio star”.   Today the channel lives on in a far different form choosing to air reality programming with no relation to music.

And then there’s ESPN — originally the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. In the beginning ESPN had entertainment in their name since there could not possibly be enough sports programming to fill a 24 hour day.   The acronym survived, but the company has evolved from a cable channel into a massive streaming and digital media brand fighting to stay relevant in a post-cable world.

It seems that acronyms are falling out of favor when it comes to naming and branding today’s media giants.  Still, Meta, Amazon, TikTok, X, YouTube, Netflix, Peacock will face the same challenges as their predecessors. There will always be a constant need to see around corners and reinvent.  Some brands will become cultural fossils with no meaning to a younger population.  Others with adapt and thrive through careful introspection.

In the end, these names tell the story of modern media itself: constant reinvention, disruption, and the quiet fading of once-dominant empires.