 Everything you consume today is television — whether you’re binging a four-hour podcast, doomscrolling four-second videos on Tiktok, or streaming a politician’s stump speech. That’s the way Abundance co-author Derek Thompson sees it. Derek joined Ben and I from a like-minded coworking space, where he shares cubicle walls with the likes of The Argument’s Jerusalem Demsas and Matt Yglesias. During our conversation, he explained his recent provocative essay on the power of television. Early TV analysts understood something that feels even more relevant today, he argues: that good television is defined not by a beginning and end, but by what Thompson calls “flow.” You wouldn’t tune in for just one show — you’d tune in and keep watching. “You open up TikTok to get lost in the flow without knowing what you’re going to see,” he told us. “That original analysis of television has now come to conquer the entire grammar of media.” That grammar, Thompson argues, has led the medium towards extremes. Content that thrives is measured in seconds or in hours, short-form videos going viral or a four-hour conversation in Joe Rogan’s podcast cave. The middle — the feature-length production with a beginning and end — is quietly disappearing. “So it’s absolutely the case that in a weird way, what we’re seeing now in the media is almost like a barbell effect,” Thompson said. We also talked about the breakout success of Abundance, the book he wrote with Ezra Klein; the challenges of going independent after he left The Atlantic; and why, in Derek’s view, promoting your book on podcasts might actually be the worst strategy (unless it’s Mixed Signals, of course). You can listen to the latest episode of Mixed Signals here, or watch it on YouTube. We’ll be back in your inbox on Sunday with our usual media scoops and more takeaways from the internet. — Max Tani | 
