The walls that once separated TV shows, feature films, viral videos, and holiday snapshots are collapsing. All those forms are (or can be) movies, in the original sense of the word: They're moving pictures. And now they are more and more likely to be moving on the same screens.
This convergence has been in progress for a while. But it crystallized with the announcement last year that YouTube, long associated with phones and laptops, had surpassed Disney to become the company with the most U.S. viewers on television sets. The biggest player in American TV today is a hub where you can rent Hollywood hits, watch pirated sitcom reruns for free, or enjoy thousands of amateur clips in the vein of "Charlie Bit My Finger"—not to mention all the programming posted by YouTube-native celebrities, some of whom attract larger audiences than anyone on CNN or Fox News.
