To stare out across the ever-shifting topography of the modern media landscape is to be confronted with a sobering reality - one that, sooner or later, almost every publisher, broadcaster, digital property and the like will surely find themselves forced to come to terms with. As tech giants that are already impossibly large continue to eat the world, the phenomenon that stalwart industry analyst Ken Doctor dubbed the Consolidation Games will linger on. Mind you, he coined that phrase specifically with newspapers in mind. But it also speaks to a calculus now familiar to almost any growth-minded media executive: To take on the giants, you must become, yourself, a giant. Which is the very meta explanation for why London-based Channel 4 - the broadcaster home to uniquely British TV properties like Gogglebox and The Great British Bake Off - could, somewhat improbably, soon end up in American hands.
