December 30, 2024
As 2024 draws to a close, Media Play News is once again taking a look at the headlines that rocked the home entertainment world, both in streaming and in the traditional transactional side of the business. Today’s installment lists the top 10 stories in streaming and all its acronyms (SVOD, AVOD, FAST); tomorrow, we’ll take a look at the top 10 stories in transactional home entertainment, both digital and disc.
Stories were selected by the Media Play News editorial staff and are presented countdown style.
As more streaming video consumers opted for free ad-supported options in 2024, Fox Corp.’s ad-supported Tubi streaming service led the competition. The FAST platform, which saw a 19% increase in revenue through September, is set to generate $1 billion in current fiscal year revenue, up from $150 million in revenue four years ago when Fox acquired the San Francisco-based platform for $440 million. Tubi ranked No. 1 among FAST platforms in Nielsen’s November “The Gauge” report with 1.8% total TV market share, ahead of Peacock (1.5%), Paramount+ (1.3%), Max (1.1%) and Pluto TV (0.9%). Speaking on the fiscal call, CEO Lachlan Murdoch said Tubi helped political advertisers reach a local demo that does not subscribe to legacy pay TV, and has typically opted for over-the-top video distribution. “The strength of Tubi is geo-targeting a very reachable audience and capturing local money,” Murdoch said. “It’s a must-buy for advertisers.”
Plans by Disney/ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery to launch a groundbreaking joint venture sports streaming service, dubbed Venu Sports, in the fall failed to materialize after a federal judge put the service on ice (twice) in response to an antitrust lawsuit filed against the companies by online TV distributor Fubo. U.S. District Court Judge Margaret Garnett, who in August ordered the case to go to trial in late 2025, in December denied oral arguments seeking to quash the matter, which is set to hear opening arguments next October. Fubo claims the JV is anticompetitive and would monopolize the sports streaming market.
The announcement in July of Skydance Media’s $8 billion acquisition of Paramount Global, which includes DTC platforms Paramount+ and FAST platform Pluto TV, was followed by news that Paramount would cut 2,000 jobs, or 15% of its U.S. workforce, to slash $500 million in operating costs ahead of the 2025 merger close. The studio’s streaming operation took the brunt of these cuts, losing such high-profile executives as Jeff Schultz, chief strategy officer and chief business development officer of Paramount’s DTC unit, and Erin Calhoun, senior communications executive at Paramount Streaming and Showtime. The streamer’s marketing and communications team was further rocked by the departures of SVP of communications Morgan Seal, SVP of entertainment publicity Amanda Cary, SVP of talent relations, events and awards Deva Kehoe. Other streaming executives cut included four-year veteran Tina Koyanagi-Rosener, senior director of Paramount+ scripted originals content strategy, while her six-person department was also let go. Rosener’s team worked with studios and production surrounding original Taylor Sheridan series, the “Star Trek” universe, “SEAL Team” and the new series “Criminal Minds: Evolution,” among others.
The connected television in 2024 upped its game for advertisers and consumers to connect directly in real time. TV manufacturers such as Vizio, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony/Google, TCL and Hisense increased their operating and marketing of ad-supported streaming video content to mix and match with an ecosystem of third-party ad-supported SVOD services, AVOD platforms and FAST channels. From “shoppable TV” advertising enabling consumers to purchase products directly from the TV screen to Walmart’s $2.3 billion purchase of Vizio, TV makers embraced streaming video. In August, Vizio’s WatchFree+ platform live-streamed The Women’s Cup Summer soccer tournament; in May, Magnolia Pictures Home Entertainment announced a partnership with Samsung for access to the studio’s film catalog. The deal gives Samsung TV Plus viewers access to more than 330 hours of ad-supported content across 160 titles. Samsung also expanded a content deal with FilmRise, adding 600 hours of programming, including 19 TV series and more than 120 movies.
Streaming services across the spectrum embraced catalog TV shows in 2024. From old episodes of “Monk,” “Lost,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” and “Gossip Girl,” Netflix, along with Hulu and Max, sought to jumpstart streaming interest in primetime TV shows from the past (something Danny Fisher recognized early on with FilmRise). And it worked. Three of the above shows ranked in the Nielsen’s Top 10 for acquired content in November. Disney+ scored with licensed reruns of child-friend animated series “Bluey,” which the streamer is turning into a feature film. Peacock generated viewers concurrently streaming “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” on Hulu. Data from Hub Research finds that 64% of viewers say their current favorite show is an older show that’s been on for several seasons — up from 54% in 2021. “Peak TV [1999 to 2023] created a huge number of quality shows that many people just didn’t have time to watch when they were new,” said Hub analyst Jon Giegengack. “But they’re happy to stream them now. This bodes well for licensing of exclusive shows to new services with audiences that haven’t seen them yet.”
Premium television distribution, the legacy cash cow for media corporations, got the cold shoulder treatment in 2024. In November, Comcast shook up the TV ecosystem with plans to create a new publicly traded company in 2025, dubbed “SpinCo,” comprised of NBCUniversal’s cable networks, including USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, Syfy and Golf Channel, along with digital assets Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow and Sports Engine. Then, in December, Warner Bros. Discovery disclosed plans to separate its cable TV business from its streaming and studio operations. The company’s legacy TNT, Animal Planet and CNN platforms, among others, will be merged into a new Global Linear Networks business unit. The move could also be key to driving market value for the remaining streaming and studio assets, according to Bank of America analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich. “We strongly believe there is potential for fairly sizable synergies if WBD’s linear networks were combined with SpinCo,” Ehrlich wrote in a note. “Further, we believe WBD’s standalone streaming and studio assets would be an attractive takeover target.”
Streamers continued to crack down on password-sharing in 2024. Disney early this year informed Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ subscribers that it will begin monitoring accounts to see if they are being illegally used by unauthorized users outside a subscriber’s household. The company subsequently said subscribers suspected of improper sharing would be given the option to add “borrowers” to their accounts, for an additional fee – similar to what Netflix had been doing for more than a year. Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max in December began rolling out “gentle messaging” to existing subscribers about sharing their password to third-party users, according to streaming chief JB Perrette, in advance of the rollout early next year of third-party add-on membership options. “This is an art and a science trying to figure out who is actually sharing, versus who is at their vacation home or on a business trip,” Perrette said, adding that it remains a work-in-progress tightening the filter regarding who is using the service.
Streamers are becoming less inclined to go it alone. Disney Entertainment and Warner Bros. Discovery in May announced a mega-streaming bundle that includes Disney+, Hulu and Max will be available starting this summer in the United States. Just one week later, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts announced a “StreamSaver” bundle giving Xfinity subscribers access to Peacock service, Netflix and Apple TV+ at a vastly discounted price. Observers predict more bundling in the future. In September research house Omdia said by the end of 2024, upwards of 365 million SVOD subscriptions will have been distributed this year through operator TV, broadband and mobile bundles, representing 20% of the global streaming market. By 2029, Omdia said, bundling is expected to generate 540 million online video streaming subscriptions, or 25% of the global market.
Live sports in 2024 emerged as subscription streaming’s shiny new toy. In January, the groundbreaking Jan. 13 NFL Wild Card playoff game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins drew 23 million viewers to NBCUniversal’s Peacock, accounting for 30% of all U.S. internet traffic on that day. “We felt like we were going to melt down the internet,” Peacock boss Matt Strauss said at the time. In March, Peacock said it would be the exclusive distributor for the NFL’s first-ever regular season game in São Paulo, Brazil, while Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max for the first time live-streamed select 2024 NCAA college basketball “March Madness” tournament games. Netflix live-streamed The Netflix Slam, a March 3 exhibition tennis match featuring Spanish stars Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz in Las Vegas. In May, Netflix announced a groundbreaking deal with the NFL to stream the league’s two Christmas Day games, which wound up reaching a record 65 million viewers. The NFL games occurred more than a month after Netflix blew up the internet with 108 million global viewers concurrently streaming a boxing fight card headlined by former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson against social media star Jake Paul, from AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. “We’re into live because our members love it, and it drives a ton of engagement and it drives a ton of excitement,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said on a July earnings webcast. “And those two things are very valuable to advertisers.”
The top streaming story of 2024? In our view, it’s that streamers’ long quest for profitability finally came to fruition. Disney’s direct-to-consumer streaming service business segment, which includes Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu, posted its first-ever operating profit of $47 million through March, compared to a $587 million loss in the prior-year period. The bottom-line result was mirrored by Warner Bros. Discovery, whose streaming services include Max and Discovery+, which posted DTC operating income of $86 million, and Paramount Global, which saw its DTC business (Paramount+ and Pluto TV) swing to black with a $26 million operating income through June. And yet these fiscal gains pale in comparison to Netflix, which generated more than $6.8 billion in profit through September. The lone loss outlier continues to be NBCUniversal’s Peacock, which widened its most recent quarterly loss to $436 million from $348 million in the prior quarter, driven largely by operating costs associated with the Paris Summer Olympics.
