The State of Media & Entertainment Streaming 2026
In last year’s The State of Media & Entertainment Streaming, I wrote about the likelihood of studios and platforms with fewer subscribers than the big three (Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and Disney) having to collaborate or merge to reduce the costs of content creation and acquisition while growing their userbases in 2025. As predicted last year, some of this movement has begun to happen, but not necessarily with the smaller players.
Netflix’s 2025 growth
Netflix made a strategic shift from a purely growth-focused model to one centred on generating a higher ROI on content. This included an expansion into more live events and a focus on the advertising-funded side of the platform.
Netflix reported $45 billion in annual revenue in 2025, a 12% increase over 2024, with the operating margin increasing to 30%. The advertising tier of the service showed strong growth, with advertising revenue almost doubling to reach $1.5 billion.
Netflix’s show-by-show performance
In terms of content, the year was marked by some highly anticipated hits and some surprises. Squid Game Series 3 debuted in June and quickly reached 79 million views shortly after its release, becoming Netflix’s fourth most-watched show of all time. In addition, Wednesday Series 2 recorded 123.9 million views after its debut in August. Stranger Things drew to a close in November and December, pulling in 94 million views for Series 5. The Stranger Things finale also drove all previous series into the platform’s top 10 across Europe in November and December.
Adolescence was perhaps the surprise breakout hit series. The English drama, in which each episode is one continuous shot, had 145 million views in the first half of the year and garnered a number of awards, winning eight Emmys and four Golden Globes.
In terms of films, K-Pop Demon Hunters was Netflix’s most-watched title in the second half of 2025, with 482 million views. The film was a huge breakout hit, with both Sony and Netflix being taken by surprise by the phenomenon. They were quick to capitalise on the success, launching a singalong version on the platform supported by a cinema release, but key opportunities were missed, particularly around the launch of merchandise. Merchandise is now becoming available, and a deal has been finalised for a sequel.
K-Pop Demon Hunters was the most watched title in the second half of 2025 with 482 million views.
In terms of expansion into live, Netflix sealed a partnership with WWE’s Raw and showed an NFL Christmas Day doubleheader as well as the Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford fight. Netflix continues to build out its live internal team, suggesting the increase in live content will continue.
Netflix also produced original content with January 2026’s Skyscraper Live, a free-climbing event with Alex Honnold of Free Solo fame scaling the Taipei 101 skyscraper. The show was seen by 6.2 million viewers, despite a 1-day delay due to poor weather conditions.
Netflix continued its expansion into live events in January with Skyscraper Live.
Netflix’s cloud gaming growth
Beyond films and TV, Netflix expanded its gaming offering as it doubled down on games based on existing properties. Squid Game: Unleashed became the platform’s most downloaded in-house game, with additional titles based on Love Is Blind and Virgin River also proving popular.
The gaming service has 3–4 million active gamers per day, which is roughly 10% of Steam’s audience, but as it begins to invest in games optimised for televisions, its goal to become the “Netflix of games” could have a significant impact. Attracting and retaining users through gaming on TV is not only a differentiator, but it puts Netflix at the core of living room entertainment in another category.
Bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery: the biggest story of 2025 takes a twist in 2026
The big headline of 2025 was Netflix’s bid to acquire the film, television, and streaming division of Warner Bros. Discovery for $82.7 billion, which included Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. Television, HBO, and the HBO Max streaming service. Warner Bros. Discovery intended to spin off its legacy cable networks (including CNN, TNT Sports, TBS, and the Food Network) into a new, independent company.
However, Paramount Skydance made a higher-value bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, and to fend it off, Netflix initially increased its offer to an all-cash $27.75 per share, which was still lower than Paramount Skydance’s $30 per share offer. This was to make the deal more appealing to stockholders along with a record $5.8 billion reverse termination fee if the deal failed to clear regulatory hurdles.
Warner Bros. Discovery repeatedly rejected Paramount Skydance’s offer, labelling it “inadequate” due to the heavy debt load (about $87 billion) a combined Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery entity would have.
Surprisingly, on 26 February, Netflix withdrew from the bidding with a statement from co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, saying, in part, “At the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive.” Although the Netflix statement described the acquisition as a “‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must-have’ at any price,” this is still a significant loss, as it would have given Netflix an increase in subscribers and high-value content, including Harry Potter and Game of Thrones.
For Paramount Skydance, which has seen the Paramount+ streaming service show declining growth in its subscriber base, this influx of additional content and subscribers will be essential.
The Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery deal will face significant regulatory hurdles and will take at least 12 months to close. The US Department of Justice already launched an in-depth antitrust review in January 2026, and unions such as the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA have expressed alarm, warning that the merger could reduce competition for scripts, push down wages, eliminate jobs, and change the theatrical distribution model.
The merger doesn’t seem to have had an impact on ongoing commercial deals. Historically, HBO Max has not been able to launch in certain European territories due to an existing deal with Sky. However, the service will now be available in the UK on 26 March at the relatively low cost of £4.99 per month.
In Europe, the major winner of the deal might be Sky, which announced that HBO Max would be added into its existing subscriptions at no cost and is launching a new subscription plan bringing together Disney+, Netflix, Hayu, and HBO Max for only £24 per month. As viewers look for more value from their subscriptions and the consolidation in the industry continues, the real winners will be those in a position to aggregate services.
Amazon Prime’s 2025 growth
In 2025, Amazon Prime Video’s revenue growth was very focused on a large number of sub-scribers being moved to an AVOD model by default, with ad-free content now being available at an additional cost. As you would expect, ad revenue itself was predicted to almost double to $806 million from $433 million in 2024. In addition, monthly viewers rose significantly from around 200 million in early 2024 to more than 315 million in November 2025. Viewer engagement is also showing a significant increase, with the average viewing time in the UK going up 30% in 2025.
In terms of perennial hits, The Boys, Reacher, and Fallout delivered strong numbers in Europe, with more than half of both Reacher’s and The Boys’ total audience being outside of the US. In European markets, LOL: Last One Laughing and The Rig were both strong performers in the UK, with Hotel Costiera being a big success in Italy and The Assassin and Malice being strong hits in Greece.
Amazon Prime also shifting focus to live
As with Netflix, Amazon has increased its focus on live, which in Amazon’s case has been based on sport. This is an expensive area of growth, with the service now offering NBA, NHL, and European football games. The rights for these incur significant costs, with global programming costs being $10.6 billion in 2025. However, this is significantly down from 2024, when these costs peaked at $20 billion, mainly due to increased investment in MGM and live sport.
Amazon Prime secured broadcast rights to UEFA Champions League football through 2030/2031.
The question for both Netflix and Amazon is if sport and other live content make the platforms stickier and increase viewing time in the long term. The increase in investment from both would suggest so, but it will be interesting to see the ROI on all of these live events.
Amazon Prime’s premium IP acquisitions
One of the bargains of Amazon’s recent investments could in fact be control of the James Bond franchise. Financial reports from Eon Productions were widely quoted in the press, suggesting that the payment was a mere $20 million. This seems well below the mark, though, with an unconfirmed figure of $1 billion seeming much more likely.
Appointing David Heyman, who produced the Harry Potter franchise, and Amy Pascal, who oversaw the Spider-Man franchise at Sony, to produce the next Bond movie seems like a solid move and gives Amazon the freedom to develop new films and spinoffs. If done successfully, building out the franchise could be massively profitable, as the last three Bond movies pulled in more than $2.6 billion at the global box office.
Disney+’s 2025 growth
Disney finally achieved consistent profitability with Disney+, as 2024 became a break-even year and 2025 showed an acceleration in profitability. Disney+ also experienced growth in its subscriber base, as it rose to 131.6 million by the end of 2025, compared to 124.6 million in 2024. With Disney+ now in a consolidation-and-steady-growth phase, despite a subscription price increase across all service tiers in October 2025, there was very little impact on subscriber numbers. This demonstrates the potential for steady subscriber and subscription growth going forward for at least the next 2–3 years.
While Disney+ is still showing promising growth as a platform, the flagging performance of Disney’s Marvel property plus the lack of new film content from the Star Wars franchise need to be addressed to ensure a flow of high-quality content. Marvel’s last three cinematic releases underperformed at the box office, as the arrival of films onto streaming platforms relatively quickly after release seems to have an impact on the box office both for Disney and the wider industry. With Spider-Man: Brand New Day set for release in July 2026 and Avengers: Doomsday in December 2026, Disney is hoping to recapture the box office heights of both franchises. With the budget for Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars (due out in 2027) reported to be more than $1 billion, both films need to deliver significant box office and reinvigorate the Marvel franchise to again make it a must-see in theatres.
In terms of Star Wars, the franchise has kept relatively quiet, with an attempt to move it away from the main nine films’ storyline. A safe financial bet is probably the Mandalorian and Grogu film, which concludes the Disney+ series and is scheduled for release in May 2026. The completely standalone Starfighter film, which releases in 2027, is a riskier bet and will be a test to see if the audience really wants new stories in the familiar universe. As with the new Marvel movies, the success of these films is essential for the rejuvenation of the franchise, both creatively and economically.
In terms of consolidation and partnership in the UK, ITVX and Disney+ struck a deal that allows them to share selections of each other’s content. This was designed to drive engagement and upsell new subscriptions, and it represents an interesting move in terms of the delivery of content across Europe, as smaller streaming platforms cut deals to share content and cross-promote.
BBC and YouTube
BBC’s iPlayer continued to show growth and remains the dominant service in the UK. But as is the case in a number of European territories, in December 2025, the BBC’s total number of viewers was surpassed by YouTube’s for the first time. The BBC had a total of 50.8 million people watching the combined output from the corporation, with YouTube having 51.9 million.
YouTube surpassed BBC in the UK in overall viewership for the first time in 2025
In January 2026, the BBC announced that it would begin producing content specifically designed for YouTube. As with many broadcasters, the BBC has used YouTube to promote clips and trailers for its own shows in the UK. However, the new move will see the BBC make content primarily aimed at YouTube’s digital-native younger audience, although it may also be made available on the BBC’s iPlayer and Sounds platforms. The BBC had not previously produced original series for YouTube, but its main YouTube account has more than 15 million subscribers, and a separate BBC News YouTube channel has roughly 19 million. The BBC will now increase the number of channels it has on YouTube to 50 as part of the agreement.
To generate additional revenue outside of the UK, the new programmes will feature advertising. The content started with the Winter Olympics in February 2026 and will include a mixture of entertainment, documentaries, children’s channels, news, and sport. BBC director general Tim Davie said the deal will help the BBC “connect with audiences in new ways” and added that the partnership “also allows new audiences different routes into BBC services like BBC iPlayer and Sounds.”
The deal makes the BBC the second UK broadcaster to not only deliver full-length content through You
Tube but also produce content directly for the platform. Channel 4 started producing and sharing full content on YouTube in May 2022, generating 175 million organic views for full-length content in 2025. Although Channel 4 doesn’t publish separate figures for YouTube revenue, it did in a recent report state that it made a significant contribution to its £1.04 billion annual revenue.
Over the last 2 years, YouTube’s main growth has come from its smart TV app, so it is an obvious strategic move for channels to start placing their content directly onto the platform. In addition, as around 25% of the world’s population (2.7 billion people) uses YouTube every month, it is a particularly wise way to expand their potential audience beyond local markets.
More collaborations and consolidation to come in 2026
2025, as predicted, showed growth in collaborative deals between platforms and the start of acquisitions with the pending Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery deal. Given the level of subscribers from the platforms outside of the top three, 2026 will see the continuation of both consolidations and collaborations as the platforms look to grow audience and content to reach a critical mass. There is still a question as to whether any of them will manage to do so and be able to compete with the big three, particularly if the Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery deal clears regulatory hurdles.
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