How the Big Streaming Services Stack Up Heading Into 2025

The company is also looking to reach more of those subscribers through a seamless experience, with Disney+’s Hulu and ESPN tiles now allowing subscribers to access those services — and update their accounts — all in one place. In addition to more than 5,000 live events broadcast through the ESPN tile in the first 90 days of its debut on Disney +, the tile has reached atypical sports fans and families through alt cast and specially programmed.

Disney’s global advertising president Rita Ferro recently told ADWEEK About 50% of Disney+ subscriptions go to its advertising tier every month With the increase in viewing, the company is also looking to reach more mid-market advertisers, recently adjusting the structure of its ad sales team to bring more self-serve video inventory to brands that previously did not they have no ads on the streamer.

Prime Video brings streaming inventory to Earth

In January, Prime Video debuted its ad tier, automatically enrolling its subscribers and shaking up the streaming advertising market. Amazon reports that its ad-supported Prime Video tier has around 115 million ad-supported US viewers (and more than 200 million in the world).

That influx of inventory helped lower streaming prices in the most recent advance, with buyers saying CPM (cost per thousand viewers reached) discounts ranged from the mid-teens to 45%, according to where the price started. For example, when Netflix launched its advertising tier about two years ago, it was looking for CPMs of about $65. This time, with a buyer’s market, the streamer numbers were under $30.

Although there are discounts, the volume is very high. In Magna’s latest predictionsthe company noted that ad-supported streaming “has grown dramatically.” In the United States, the proportion of users of the ad tier has grown from 5% to 17% for Netflix, from 10% to 30% for Disney +, and from 0% to 80% for Prime Video.

Going forward, Prime Video will expand its ads to new markets in 2025, including Brazil, India, Japan, the Netherlands and New Zealand. The company also continues to find new opportunities to incorporate shoppables and technology with its sports offerings, including telling ADWEEK exclusively that it will bring the National Basketball Association on Black Friday along with its annual National Football League meeting.

Max-ing out on new markets

In the last nine months, Max launched in 73 new countries in Latin America, Europe and Asia, and the company added 7.2 million new subscribers in the third quarter, bringing Warner Bros.’s DTC total to Discovery to more than 110 million in the world.

In a recent earnings call, CEO David Zaslav attributed the accelerated subscriber growth to projects such as House of the Dragon and The Penguin, as well as titles such as Dune: Prophecy, The White Lotus, The Last of Us and Peacemaker.