2024 Lookback: Streaming Strategy, Netflix Narrative, Studio Struggles

As another turbulent year in media and tech comes to an end, VIP+ analysts are revisiting what they got right — and wrong — in their 2024 forecasts. In this installment, Tyler Aquilina assesses how studio and streamer strategies played out in a time he predicted would be the year of “any means necessary” for legacy media.

If there’s a unifying theme to my forecasts for 2024, it’s that they mostly came to pass — just not necessarily in the ways I expected.

As 2023 drew to a close, I was one of several media analysts who declared an end to the streaming wars, taking a new licensing deal between Disney and Netflix as confirmation that the latter had prevailed over its competitors.

With that in mind, I pondered where Netflix and its legacy media rivals were headed over the next year, noting, “The legacy players must do whatever they can to simply weather the ongoing storm, whether that’s M&A, new forms of bundling such as the Disney-Charter pact or using their library content as currency to help fund their business.”

As for Netflix, I voiced concern over what might happen in the entropy of victory, predicting that “this question will likely hang over Netflix’s 2024 even if its success continues throughout the year: What exactly is the company’s narrative going forward?”

All of these predictions came true in unexpected ways over the past year, as Netflix leadership began to reshape the way the company frames its business, legacy media companies surprised with new tactics, and one piece of library content in particular became Disney’s coup de grace to win the year.

Let’s break these down one at a time:

Netflix Narrative
When considering Netflix’s path forward, I was bullish on the streamer’s inroads into gaming, which faded into the background somewhat over the last year. But Ted Sarandos & Co. have indeed started rewriting Netflix’s narrative for investors, most notably by deciding to wind down the streamer’s quarterly subscriber reports.

Wall Street didn’t take too kindly to this news, but the Big Red N’s continued overperformance on topline metrics outweighed all other concerns this year, pushing Netflix stock to record highs just two years after its historic crash.

Meanwhile, a close examination of the company’s earnings reports shows a concerted effort to de-emphasize subscriber growth and reorient investor focus.

“Engagement, our best proxy for member happiness, remains healthy,” Netflix’s most recent letter to shareholders reads, adding, “As we look ahead to 2025, we’re focused on improving every aspect of our service and continuing to deliver healthy revenue and profit growth.”

And if Netflix hasn’t yet managed to expand its business via gaming, the streamer is working hard to do so through live events, a strategy I unwisely overlooked last year. November’s Jake Paul-Mike Tyson bout was a much-hyped engagement success for the platform (despite the event’s technical SNAFUs) and the streamer’s upcoming Christmas Day NFL broadcasts could deliver an even bigger audience.

I would expect Netflix to move quickly to expand its live events business over the next year; WWE’s “Monday Night Raw” is already set to begin weekly broadcasts on the SVOD in January. Live programming — especially sporting events — will be crucial to growing advertising as a revenue stream while driving audience engagement, and thus continue to shift Netflix’s narrative toward these metrics and away from subscriber growth.

M&A
The Paramount-Skydance merger generated most of the media M&A headlines in 2024, but to me, the more interesting — and yes, unexpected — transaction occurred just weeks before year’s end.

That would be Comcast’s move to spin off its NBCUniversal cable networks into a new entity (“SpinCo”), the latest and so far boldest effort by a legacy media company to alleviate the burden of its legacy businesses.

The strategy may seem obvious given the declining economics of cable, but I would not have predicted Comcast, rooted as it is in the cable TV business, would be the first to make this move. Still, it seems unlikely to be the last: Warner Bros. Discovery’s abrupt reorganization this month, which split its linear TV and streaming businesses into separate divisions, suggests CEO David Zaslav may be mulling a similar maneuver.

New Forms of Bundling
One prediction I nailed last year: The streaming world would see new forms of bundling continue to proliferate in 2024.

The fabled streaming mega-bundle has still not come to pass, of course, but the state of the market has still prompted intercompany cooperation that would have been unthinkable a few short years ago.

Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery launched a collaborative streaming bundle in July, tacking Max onto the Mouse House’s increasingly popular Disney+-Hulu combo, and WBD has continued to seek new distribution partners for its SVOD, including Charter Communications (echoing the deal Disney struck with the pay TV provider last year) and even streaming rival Comcast, which now has the rights, if not the plans, to bundle Max on its U.S. platforms.

Of course, the most dramatic bundling move of the year was one that never made it to market: Venu Sports, the troubled live-sports streaming collab between Disney, WBD and Fox. Like most media industry observers, I did not see this particular combo coming, but it fit with what I described as the industry’s “any means necessary” strategy for 2024.

Library Content as Currency
Library and licensed content continue to drive significant engagement on streaming, even if there was no breakout on the level of “Suits” this year. The Netflix engagement machine fueled another surprise success story with “Your Honor” (licensed from Paramount), and the flow of popular legacy-media series back to Netflix continued with marquee titles including “Sex and the City,” “Gossip Girl” and “Lost.”

When it comes to leveraging library content, though, Disney remains the undisputed champion. The Mouse House has best executed what every streamer tried to do in pulling its prized programming off of Netflix: using that content to lure viewers and subscriber dollars.

This isn’t exactly what I meant by “using library content as currency”; I expected to see more deals in the vein of Disney horse-trading several shows for the rights to stream “Grey’s Anatomy.” Instead, the company has used its unrivaled flywheel to turn theatrical hits into streaming successes, as I discussed at length in a previous article.

The success of “Moana 2,” which was powered in no small part by the popularity of its predecessor on Disney+, is proof that while blockbuster originals are still prize pigs, strong library titles have become streaming’s new cash cows.

Other VIP+ 2024 lookbacks ...
• Rob Steiner revisits the year in the creator economy — and if it made its mark
• Kaare Eriksen revisits 2024 domestic box office — and which films didn’t measure up
• Audrey Schomer revisits how the year in generative AI has impacted Hollywood