> I'm not clear on how long residuals can last in a sustainable way

They were possible before, since there was much less content available at any given time. The media industry is in a bit of a death spiral it feels like, with a race to the bottom in many ways.

When broadcast tv was a bigger thing, syndicated shows were licensed to stations, who typically sold ad slots, allowing them to pay the licensing fees.

The problem is in many ways streaming platforms just really aren’t that cheap to run in the US when compared to old methods of distribution and the margin is almost entirely going to the platform, not the people making the content.