You might be referring to the remnants of broadcast television. I'm referring to the screen-based productions capturing the eyeballs of tomorrow.

One serious strand of America's whip of many thongs is the inability or refusal to acknowledge the rise in power and influence elsewhere.

As Gandalf - the last remaining talkshow host - gets pulled off the bridge into the abyss, he looks up to see a motley brigade of multi-cultural hobbits dashing for the surface with their wits and wallets thankfully intact.

Please excuse my excruciating reimagining of your wild fantasy metaphor.

American companies control:

* The largest global streaming platforms (Netflix/HBO/Max, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+)

* The largest content libraries by revenue

* The most extensive international distribution networks

* The vast majority of high-budget scripted shows (budgets > $5M/episode)

* The highest global licensing revenue streams

* The most valuable franchises (DC, Marvel, Star Wars, Harry Potter, LOTR rights distribution through Amazon, etc.)

No European or Asian company has anything close to this global reach.

This a highly focussed western lens but is not representative of global media culture and business.

If you completely discount Tencent Video, iQIYI, Youku, Bilibili, Kuaishou and so on in this outlook then that is the whip of many thongs in action.

I realise some of these platforms operate behind a wall you can't see over but don't think for a minute that wall isn't coming down.

The things China does strictly within the walls of its own insular society is a very far cry from representative of "global media culture and business".

It is very much dominated by American media companies at every level. Funding, development, production, distribution.

Its nothing to do with the wall they are behind, the market and companies are just smaller.

For example, Tencent Video ranks 4th largest streamer in the world by subscribers after Amazon, Netflix, and Disney+. All American companies.

Your argument doesnt really seem to hold water.

Something doesn't happen until it happens. And even when it happens, it might fail.

So far China hasn't broken down many walls, for example I'm fairly sure they can't do what TSMC does.

And for media... guess what, they need to open a lot of things up. There's a lot more freedom of speech in the US, so US media can be about a lot of things interesting to the rest of the world. The US even has a lot media catering to other countries (for example media targetting Chinese audiences).

I mean, China could try that, we have the examples of Japanese and South Korean media, but both of those are democratic, and even then, it took them a long time to develop. Plus neither of them are near the levels of influence US media has.