• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, August 9, 2021

Two of the major bellwether streaming TV companies, Netflix and Roku, have witnessed a bit of reality in the new connected TV world.

Both high-flying companies took some dings from the Wall Street investors and other media analysts recently -- their respective stock prices went lower. Don’t worry, they still made plenty of money.

The pullback comes chiefly from the usual Wall Street investment mode of operation, when it comes to future promise/expectations of these businesses.

Much of this was anticipated, now a year after the pandemic period, where massive at-home restricted workers/students and others had little recreational outlets.

Executives at Walt Disney, ViacomCBS, Comcast, Fox Corp. and the forthcoming Warner Bros. Discovery might see a silver lining — playing catch up.

Some would say these legacy companies -- turning on the big financial spigots, for new and acquired streaming and advanced advertising platforms -- was a no-brainer.

Jump in with both feet or fail quickly. There is no alternative -- not when the traditional TV subscriber universe keeps dropping 5% per year. No time for Monday-morning quarterbacking.

Of course, Netflix and Roku aren’t the only players, here. Add in a number of other companies, many of which have competing media-related businesses, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple.

It’s good to remember big traditional media companies still need to make massive merger maneuvers, as well. Warner Bros and Discovery, for example. Now the talk is about Comcast and ViacomCBS possibly merging. Ten years ago, that would have been unthinkable -- a nonstarter when it comes to federal antitrust rules.

Now, if the news broke that DirecTV really wanted to merged with Dish Network? Probably an after-thought in media business news. Key area of concern: Count the media companies that have been left flat-footed.

As for Netflix and Roku, and the occasional minor hit? These companies are still stomping.