The Portal Becomes the Venue

Institutions move inside platforms. Production turns into infrastructure.

This is the last System Alert of 2025, which feels slightly unreal given how fast this year moved. Thank you for joining me while I’ve been building a way to track media tech and AI with a cultural lens, not just a product lens.

The goal has been simple. Stay close to what actually ships, follow where power quietly relocates, and name the new defaults before they harden.

Over the past year, I’ve come to think of that system as a Cultural OS. Not a company, not a platform, but the operating environment that decides how culture is made, routed, rewarded, and remembered.

This week’s stories all point to the same shift inside that OS. Institutions are moving into portals, and production is becoming infrastructure.

The Oscars move into YouTube

Source: The New York Times, December 17, 2025

Starting in 2029, the Academy Awards will stream exclusively on YouTube under a new deal with Google, ending ABC’s long run as the Oscars’ primary home. The agreement also expands the package beyond the ceremon…