For the past few weeks, I’ve been in the mountains of North Carolina with the fam. It’s a slow part of the year for media and entertainment anyway, so this felt like a good moment to write something simple.
Below are seven predictions for the streaming industry based on how the business actually works today, who controls what, and where the money goes, as things start to pick back up again.
Nothing fancy. Just what’s likely to happen.
1. Companies will spend less money on content
Streaming companies aren’t going broke. But they’re also not throwing money around like they used to.
They can’t keep spending more every year if subscribers aren’t growing the same way. So they’re tightening up. That means:
- fewer shows
- shorter seasons
- safer bets
- fewer experimental projects
They’ll still make hits. They’ll just make fewer attempts.
2. Whoever controls the TV screen has the upper hand
It matters less who has the best shows and more who controls how people find them.
If your app shows up first…
If you control the home screen…
If you handle billing…
You’re in a better position than someone with a great brand but no control over access.
This is why distribution often matters more than the size or quality of a content library.
3. Ads are where the growth comes from now
Subscriptions keep the lights on. Ads move the numbers.
Ad-supported streaming makes money every time someone watches, without needing them to sign up or cancel later. That’s powerful.
This doesn’t mean subscriptions go away. It just means:
- ads are easier to scale
- ads cost less to support
- ads are where most new money comes from
That’s already happening.
4. Bundles are back, but media companies don’t run them
People don’t want 12 separate streaming services. They want fewer bills and less hassle.
Bundles fix that.
But the companies putting these bundles together usually aren’t studios or networks. They’re companies that already control access, billing, or distribution.
Some companies fit into more than one of these categories, but the leverage comes from different parts of the stack.
That includes:
- Device makers, like Roku and Samsung, that control what shows up on the TV home screen
- Platforms, like Google and Apple, that control operating systems, app stores, and billing
- Retailers, like Amazon and Walmart, that can bundle streaming into broader membership programs
- Phone companies, like Verizon and AT&T, that include streaming as part of wireless plans
Media companies participate in these bundles because they need reach. They rarely control the bundle itself.
5. Sports leagues take back control
Sports looks messy right now. Games everywhere. Prices all over the place.
But underneath that mess, leagues are taking control back.
They want to:
- own the production
- own the data
- have direct relationships with fans
Distributors still matter. They help with reach and money. But leagues don’t want to hand everything over anymore.
That’s bad news for middlemen who don’t have scale.
6. AI cuts costs before it changes creativity
AI isn’t suddenly going to write the next great show.
What it will do is make parts of the business faster and cheaper. That includes marketing, localization, development support, and administrative work.
Over time, this reduces costs and reduces headcount in operational and support functions, even if the creative side of the business remains largely unchanged.
7. Winning Will Look Boring
The companies that do best in streaming won’t feel exciting.
They won’t be chasing the biggest shows, the loudest launches, or the most attention. They’ll focus on running a steady business that doesn’t rely on any single hit to work.
That means:
- keeping costs predictable
- avoiding big swings that can’t be justified
- making money from viewing consistently, not occasionally
- controlling distribution instead of chasing buzz
They’ll still make content, but they won’t expect one show to save a quarter or define the brand. Success will come from repeating the same plays over and over, not from landing a breakout win.
This is different from how traditional media worked, where a few hits could cover for a lot of misses. In streaming, misses are harder to hide, and volatility is expensive.
The companies that accept this reality will look boring from the outside. Internally, they’ll be stable, disciplined, and hard to disrupt.
The Streaming Wars Take
Subscriber growth can’t carry spending. Advertising growth depends on scale and control. Distribution leverage is increasingly owned by companies outside traditional media. That leaves fewer viable paths than most organizations are structured to pursue.
In practice, this forces hard tradeoffs. You can optimize for margin or volume, but not both. You can own the customer relationship or rent it, but renting comes with limits. You can chase breakout hits, or you can run a predictable business, but the tolerance for misses is shrinking.
As activity picks back up, these tradeoffs won’t be theoretical. They’ll show up in budgets, deal terms, and org charts. Companies that align their strategies with those constraints will stabilize, even if growth looks modest. Companies that don’t will keep burning capital trying to recreate conditions that no longer exist.
That’s the divide now. Not winners and losers, but businesses built for how streaming actually works today versus businesses still planned for how it used to.
This is also why I’ve never liked the way the term streaming wars got framed as a race to amass the most subscribers, as if there was ever going to be one final winner standing at the end. That was never the real competition. It missed the harder problem, which was how media companies would operate in a world where their biggest partners are also their biggest competitors, where distribution platforms are also gatekeepers, and where leverage shifts depending on who controls the customer, the data, and the screen.
From the beginning, the real question wasn’t who could grow fastest. It was who could survive and operate inside that reality, working with platforms they depend on and compete against at the same time, without blowing up their economics or their strategy.
That’s why this was never a zero-sum game. Multiple companies can and will succeed. Multiple models can work. What won’t work is pretending this is still a land grab with a single finish line.
My prediction is that we can stop talking about the streaming wars that way altogether. Not because competition goes away, but because it becomes clear that this was never a battle to be won outright. It was a long adjustment to a new landscape, and the companies that understood that early are the ones still standing.
