Means TV: Inside the Leftist, Worker-Owned Streaming Service

Summary

The entertainment media cooperative considers itself a ‘post-capitalist’ streaming service – and a critical counterweight to rightwing media.

Naomi Burton and Nick Hayes met at a meeting for the Detroit chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Both were working for automakers in the city: Hayes created freelance video content for them while Burton ran social media for the same companies. Together, they launched Means of Production, a media company that would take no corporate clients.

Five months later, they made Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s viral Courage To Change video. The social capital they accrued, plus a bit of savings, led them to launch Means TV – a worker-owned, leftist entertainment media cooperative, supported entirely by subscriber money. As of 7 April, they have 3,700 subscribers, most of whom pay the full fee of $10 a month, though Burton notes that they “always offer discounted subscriptions to anyone who can’t afford it”.