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When rapper LL Cool J decided it was time to reinvent himself in 1990 after a commercial slump and critical dismissal, he knew it would be pegged as a comeback attempt. Unwilling to accept that trMalization of his most recent work, 1989's Walking With a Panther, he made sure to put his critics in their place with the first line of the title track from his next record, Mama Said Knock You Out: "Don't call it a comeback," he spat. "I've been here for years."
Anyone who's been in our industry since its beginnings can relate to that sentiment, and streaming media veterans understandably chafe at the notion that streaming somehow went away during the lean years of 2000 to 2005. These days, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting an online video startup, but it was these core players-the ones whose tenacity and ability to adapt to market needs kept them going, the kind of people we honored last issue as the Streaming Media All-Star Team-who kept not only themselves but the entire industry afloat and moving forward so that this supposed "comeback" would be possible.
David Caruso knows a thing or two about comebacks. After he rose to stardom in the first season of TVYPD Blue, Caruso left the series...