In this interview from CES 2024, Kirby Grines, Founder & CEO at 43Twenty, delves into the power of linear as a content discovery mechanism, and how it still holds an exciting future in streaming TV.

Kirby Grines: It's not fast per se, but it's linear channels. I think a lot gets said about FAST because it's an exciting business model, bringing a lot more content to consumers [for] free. It's free, it’s great, it's the best price– But linear as a viewing mechanism… I'm excited to see it because it's inevitable and (come at me when this never happens) Netflix introducing linear into, forget external FAST, they've done some of that, but I mean linear inside of Netflix, linear inside of Disney. Because there's a beauty of– there’s two things, and ultimately, this OTT streaming video thing was all about watching what you want, when you want, where you want. Sometimes I want to be the programmer and watch 'Killers of the Flower Moon'. Sometimes I don't know what I want to watch, just show me something. And that's not only great for how I want to watch content, but serendipity, content discovery, which we talked about, how do we find something? But sometimes we find things we didn't know about. 

That's the power of linear, to stumble into something that you otherwise would never find. I like to think, as much as we’ve evolved in video and streaming video, and all these interfaces in UX, they're not much more than digital versions of Blockbuster. And what I mean by that, you go to the store and you're making the decision on what you rent that day, based on the cover. “Oh, looks good,” or the back, “that synopsis is great, oh it has Charlie Sheen,” or, I don't know why that was the first one to come up, but it's got people I want to watch. “Alright let's check this one out.” 

There are so many titles you're going to overlook because those three things don't really resonate with you. In a linear environment, it's kind of like going to a used record store, sampling a record… like they really love the cover, but man, this thing pops, this is good, I'm going to get this. And in linear TV, it's like being able to discover something new. There's a serendipitous element you'll never get in an on-demand, programmer–I'm programming the content myself–type of environment. I myself have fallen into titles I would never click to watch, but they were presented to me, and I’ve wound up binge watching them. I think linear as a content discovery tool, and really honing in on that serendipity, is huge. And that's one major reason I think your subscription services, all services, are going to have linear.