Disney, Netflix and others change tactics in streaming wars

These are not the streaming wars of your older brother.

The battle for the public has evolved in recent months, while the rivals formerly more at the end are turning towards Fremamies and even combine on bundles. One of the main reasons is that Hollywood titans like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery have ceased to follow Netflix and are rather preparing for separate strategies.

Netflix is ​​entirely on “engagement” – how many people are looking at and interact with its platform – and no longer regularly shares its number of subscribers, which was once its star North. He has also just reorganized his home page with a vertical video because she is inspired by social media giants like YouTube and Tiktok.

Disney, on the other hand, is locked up on the growth of subscribers. Two Disney streaming employees told Business Insider that the attraction of new users remained an absolute priority, especially if they are in their packages.

And Warner Bros. Discovery deprives profitability with Max. Its quality strategy on the quantity of quality is based on cancellation prevention instead of reaching everyone or maximizing commitment.

Disney, WBD, Comcast and Apple did not respond to requests for comments.

The commitment is underway, thanks to advertisements

For years, Netflix has focused on the growth of subscribers, which was obsessed with Wall Street. But when approaching and collapsing the milestone of 300 million subscribers, Netflix focused on another objective (in addition to increasing income and profits): commitment.

A Netflix spokesperson said that commitment is its “best proxy for customer satisfaction” and that very active viewers are less likely to cancel.

Netflix led around 8% of the watch time on televisions connected to the United States in March, the most recent data provided by Nielsen. Although Netflix was the highest among his paid streaming rivals, he dragged YouTube, which obtained 12%.

This is why the Netflix CO-PDG, Greg Peters, said when calling on the first quarter of the company that there was “a lot of space to grow”.

Boosting Watch Time Help Netflix to achieve another higher objective: the construction of its emerging advertising activity. The company plays the catch -up here. He will generate $ 2.2 billion in American advertising revenue this year, according to Emarketer, which is below the figure of $ 2.7 billion in Hulu and compliant with Peacock. However, these two streamers have been advertising for years.

John Conca, a media analyst in Third Bridge, said that Netflix’s advertising activity would flourish when she was building her own advertising technology.

Amazon also focuses on its streaming advertising activity, which broke out to be released in early 2024 thanks to an unconventional unsubscription strategy. The electronic commerce giant has turned on advertisements for all videos users who do not pay $ 3 per month to delete them, when it scope of its advertising activity. Nearly 34 million of the 166 million users of Amazon first -rate video, see announcements, estimates Emarketer.

Amazon has a treasure of purchase data, which, according to Conca, can help stimulate the effectiveness of its ads.

An employee of a rival streamer who recently interviewed in Amazon told Bi that the company seemed aggressively to the growth of its advertising activities.

Subscribers’ growth is always fashionable

Not all streamers have changed their concentration to engagement. Disney always sees a lot of room for the growth of subscribers, as are medium -sized players like Paramount + and the Comcast peacock.

“Disney still does not focus on engagement, as Netflix is ​​currently,” said a Disney employee streaming, adding that the number of subscribers is the main objective. They said that commitment should improve because Hulu and Espn fall back to Disney + through the package.

Commitment is always important for Disney. A second streaming employee said that hours looked at largely determine if emissions or films are considered success, although the content can also be considered effective if it stimulates inscriptions.

Disney will not come back to growth at all costs.

“Management has shown absolutely clearly that yes, they want growth – but it must be profitable growth,” said media analyst Joe Bonner of Argus Research.

Growth is rarely cheap in streaming, as Paramount + and Peacock have learned.

Paramount + was a coherent leader in new streaming inscriptions, found the antenna of the data company. The company said this month that its global subscriber base had increased 11% in the past year to 79 million.

And while Peacock has detected for a while after the Olympic Games, the only American service added 5 million subscribers to the last quarter, bringing its total to 41 million.

Despite these earnings, none of the services is profitable, although the two are closer. However, Bonner expects to see that the two end up uniting their forces thanks to a fusion or a package, reasoning that it “is difficult to see them survive by themselves”.

Some at Wall Street are also perplexed by Apple’s streaming strategy. Apple TV + has high quality emissions, but a shallow library means that it is in the grip at a peak unsubscription rate, by antenna.

“I don’t know what is the part with Apple TV,” said Conca.

Apple’s head of services, Eddy Cue, recognized the challenge of building a streaming library from zero.

“We bet everything about the programs we make,” said Cue in March. “Those we do, they must all stick. Otherwise, we have nothing else.”

Everything on the background line

While all these streamers seek to earn money, some are focusing more on profitability than others.

WBD hoped that Max would challenge Netflix. In 2023, he dropped HBO from the brand of his streamer so that the service could have “really something for everyone”, as CEO David Zaslav said one day.

But after a slow start, the leaders made content spending and doubled on its strength.

“We are not going to flood the area,” said Zaslav when calling the company’s first quarter of the company. “We want to tell the best stories, and we also want to enjoy all the high quality content over the years.”

Max no longer aspires to be a Netflix killer, but it may not be necessary.

WBD succeeded in streamer with Disney + and Hulu. Max is smaller than the streaming of titans but increases regularly, although this is mainly due to international expansion.

Although Max now has a lower ceiling, it’s profitable. It’s crucial for WBD, given its heavy debt. Max may not win wars in streaming, but it can always be a winner.