How the Big Streaming Services Stack Up Heading Into 2025

Meanwhile, WBD chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels said global subscriber growth was down to several factors, including the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, traction from international launches, and momentum on to bundle packages with Disney +, Max and Hulu.

As the industry further consolidates amid increased competition and declining linear assets (both WBD and Paramount have multi-billion dollar write-downs in 2024 related to depreciation of linear properties), the bundles are an increasingly attractive business plan. Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+ have also announced bundles earlier this year.

Paramount+It’s complicated 2024

Paramount+ added 3.5 million new subscribers in its most recent quarter, bringing its total to 72 million. This makes Paramount+ the fifth largest streaming service, behind Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Max.

The news comes amid a tumultuous time behind the scenes for the company, with Paramount currently undergoing an acquisition by Skydance Media, which is expected to close in the first half of 2025. As a result of the merger, the company he promised to cut 15% of their workforce to find cost savings.

As the company seeks to balance its budget, it is also engaged in a ongoing dispute with Nielsenfailing to reach a new contract with the legacy measurement giant.

Peacock goes for the gold

Like many other companies, NBCUniversal continues to use live sports to power its streamer. For example, viewers will stream more than 23.5 billion minutes of coverage of the 2024 Olympics across NBCU’s portfolio, with the majority of this taking place Peacock. To date, the NBCU streamer has ridden a wave of viewers from the Olympics and the NFL to now reach 36 million subscribers.

The company is leaning on streaming even more after the parent company Comcast recently announced that it did packaged many of its cable properties into a new company, leaving them out of the conglomerate. The move will likely change Peacock’s relationship with NBCU cable stations, though that remains to be seen.

Looking Tubi a contender

Although SVOD (subscription video-on-demand platforms) receives a lot of attention, free ad-supported streamers continue to gain more market share and grow their advertising numbers.

Reporting its first fiscal quarter earnings in November, Fox said Tubi, which captured 1.8% of streaming in October, saw a 19% increase in ad sales in the first quarter. The streamer is too on pace to cross $1 billion in mark of revenues in the fiscal year.