Wall Street speculation, not consumer demand, drove the Peak TV boom.

Evidence

With fewer cable subscriptions, declining advertising dollars, and increased expenses, one would expect the television industry to be facing “Valley TV” or “Nadir TV” rather than “Peak TV.” The only explanation is a speculative tidal wave funded by Wall Street, wherein investors are escalating production and distribution, hoping that they will have placed their bets on the right configuration of culture and content. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 316

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s core question of whether financial structure causes aesthetic form — here the causal claim is that investor speculation explains content volume.
• QUESTION: The key test: does deWaard ever show HOW speculative funding changed individual texts, or only industry volume?