Increasongly there are small upstarts making these things in places like New Zealand - at a fraction of the cost
Big media arose in the 19th century, when the cost of steam presses and teletype/wire squeezed the average person out.
Now the internet has changed the playing field by taking much of the cost out of information dissemination.
The rise of recording technology and radio advertising gave studio Music production companies control over music professions (to a large degree) for decades, due to the cost of studios and access to radio advertising.
Until recently, with plummeting mixing equipment costs, and digital distribution.
Video production is in a similar cost nose dive. At some point Hollyweird's loss of the production cost barrier will kill it's control completely. It is already a shadow of it's former self.
MGM and Warner Brothers today are in exactly the same place EMI and Sony BMG were in back in 1998. The twists and turns they make trying to maintain control are not going to matter. Ultimately their biggest problem is that their business model relied upon high costs to keep those little guys who had the actual talent from not needing them.
Might be small upstarts making some of them, but in general if they’re finding a large audience Hollywood is in the mix somewhere.
The expensive part of putting on a TV show isn’t the broadcast, it’s the making. And absolutely nothing about the internet is changing that. And this show proves that the studios are still what matters, some little upstart made the original, but that was just a pilot trying to get the attention of one of the bigs to get money to make a full series. They succeeded, now NBC/ Universal is giving them money, the bigs are still the bigs, and this show is a demonstration that the internet at best will give the bigs a new distribution media. It’s ain’t killing them, it ain’t even hurting them.