In this first episode in an editorial series called, “Building the Adaptable Media Enterprise,”  Ashley J. Swartz, CEO of  Furious Corp, talks about the operational cost models of traditional (old) vs digital (new) media.

The greatest challenge of media companies today is that many digital media companies or businesses struggle to establish and build sustainable levels of profit to fuel growth, she posits.

She dives into how the variable costs of serving a digital business cause companies to chase their tails, and how our investment models of early stage venture fuel a marketplace where digital companies are not likely to survive, but rather must be bought by traditional media companies to deliver returns to investors. The chasm between early stage start ups and publicly traded companies is vast and impacts today’s media value chain, according to Swartz.

This is episode is part of multi-part series co-published by Beet.TV and Furious Corp. called, “Building the Adaptable Media Enterprise.”