At the closing session last week of the National Association of Broadcasters Show, Google's president of global partnerships, Daniel Alegre, addressed the throngs of TV and radio brass to send a message. Namely: The content industry is "in the midst of massive change." With myriad platforms seeing exponential innovation in digital and mobile technologies, the legacy media world has been turned upside down and primetime is now whatever, whenever and wherever the audience wanted it to be.

When President Obama registered his support for allowing consumers to (gasp!) choose their own set-top boxes, I envisioned the collective exploding heads of the cable lobby.

Yesterday a most damning, yet in my opinion poorly sourced, story appeared in the Financial Times. The story claimed BuzzFeed had missed its revenue target for 2015 and slashed internal projections for 2016 by about half. The FT claimed these alleged figures raised questions about whether the online news and entertainment network can meet the sky-high valuations put on new-media groups by investors.

I could not begin to count the number of times over the years that smart, talented people have attempted to transform a print magazine into a TV franchise. Mostly, it's been a recipe for failure, with exceptions such as one-off specials based on the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. But this challenged print environment, coupled with an explosion in TV platforms, seems to have opened the door for at least one venerable title to evolve its editorial savvy and brand equity through a startling quality transition to video. If you're wondering what I'm talking about, take a look at the new …