This Christmas, while some folks may binge classic holiday films like The Polar Express or The Grinch, Netflix is betting others will tune in to watch Queen Bey herself.
During halftime of the Texans-Ravens game on Christmas Day—one of two NFL games streaming exclusively on Netflix that day—Beyoncé will perform songs from her 2024 album Cowboy Carter for the first time. The game will take place in Beyoncé’s hometown of Houston, of course.
The megastar’s performance will cap off a year in which Netflix continued to report strong subscriber numbers but faced a bumpy adjustment in its pivot to live sports and its fledgling advertising business. Other streamers faced even bumpier conditions. As 2025 approaches, we took a look at how the major streamers and their parent companies fared this year.
Netflix
Wins: The streamer further built out its ad-tech capabilities, debuting an in-house ad-tech platform that rolled out in Canada and is slated to come to the US in 2025. Netflix teamed up with Google Lens to bring shoppability to its hit series Emily in Paris. And in a bid to capitalize on the marketing that fandom provides, last month Netflix debuted Moments, a feature that allows users to clip and share content from the platform.
The platform’s ad tier got a boost in May when Comcast began to offer it as part of its StreamSaver bundle, an offering that also includes access to Peacock and Apple TV+. Beyond that, the streamer’s password-sharing crackdown has also seemed to help boost the service’s overall membership numbers.
Misses: While its live content offerings, such as The Roast of Tom Brady and the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson boxing match, notched substantial views, the latter had some major buffering issues. Netflix’s attempts to lean into gaming have also been uneven: while the company released several new mobile titles, the streamer closed its AAA game studio in October and pulled the plug on interactive content on the service last month. And we can’t forget about the departure of VP of Global Ad Sales Peter Naylor in July, which came as a shock to many in the industry.
Last reported subscriber count: 282.7 million.
Prime Video
Wins: At the beginning of the year, Prime Video debuted ads on the platform and quickly added new ad formats, including interactive pause ads and shoppable carousel ads ahead of releases like Fallout and The Boys Season 4. Amazon also announced an 11-year media rights deal with the NBA that will see it streaming select NBA games starting next season and WNBA games starting in 2026. The games will be split between Disney, Prime Video, and NBCU, the league’s new media rights partner, after the group outbid longtime league rightsholder Warner Bros. Discovery.
Misses: Some of Prime Video’s bets on content haven’t exactly paid off, like My Lady Jane, which was canceled after one season, and Red One, which struggled at the box office. And as it leans into Prime Video, some of the company’s other video products are coming to an end, like free streamer Freevee, which Amazon is shuttering; its content will move into Prime Video.
Last reported subscriber count: Amazon doesn’t report Prime Video subscriber numbers, but in April, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the platform had “over 200 million monthly viewers.”
Disney+/Hulu
Wins: Disney has managed to churn out hits like Moana 2, Deadpool and Wolverine, Inside Out 2, and FX’s Shōgun, which broke records streaming on Hulu. Inside Out 2, now the highest-grossing animated film of all time globally, also brought in 100 million additional views of Inside Out to Disney+, which also became the exclusive streaming home of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.
Perhaps biggest of all, though, the streamer hit profitability for the first time in Q3.
Misses: Bundling has proved to be a mixed bag for Disney: While it debuted a new bundle of Disney+, Hulu, and Max in July, another planned bundle, the $42.99/month Venu Sports streaming joint venture from Fox, WBD, and Disney, is stuck in limbo, awaiting the next steps in an antitrust lawsuit filed by FuboTV.
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It’s also been a chaotic year for Disney leadership. Activist investor Nelson Peltz began (and lost) a proxy battle with its board, and the juggernaut continues its much-publicized search for CEO Bob Iger’s replacement.
Last reported subscriber count: 122.7 million on Disney+, 52 million on Hulu, and 25.6 million on ESPN+.
Peacock
Wins: Across NBCU, the Olympics was a success. This summer, NBCU reported an 82% spike in viewership compared to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and overall, ad and sponsorship revenue surpassed $1.25 billion for the Olympics and Paralympics, a record. Ahead of the Olympics, Peacock hiked its prices and debuted several new ad offerings, including Virtual Concessions and an expansion of its Must ShopTV ad product; the platform saw record viewership in August due to the Games.
Peacock’s ad-supported tier also got a boost in May with the debut of the aforementioned StreamSaver bundle. And it’s had some content wins, including the reality show The Traitors.
Misses: Peacock still isn’t profitable. It narrowed its losses to $436 million in Q3, an improvement from the $565 million loss it reported in Q3 2023, but that’s still higher than its loss of $348 million in Q2 of this year
Last reported subscriber count: 36 million.
Max
Wins: HBO properties continue to deliver, like The Penguin, the sophomore season of House of the Dragon, and Industry Season 3. And, like other streamers, Max hiked prices for subscribers. On the ads side, Max debuted some new ad formats, including Shop with Max and Moments. With that said, though, WBD’s US ad sales chief Jon Steinlauf is leaving the company by the end of the year.
Misses: WBD took a $9 billion write-down on its cable TV channels in August, and films like Mad Max: Furiosa and Joker: Folie à Deux bombed at the box office. Its video game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, meanwhile, proved to be a $200 million loss.
The company also took some hits in the sports space. The NBA’s new media rights deal with NBCU, Amazon, and Disney marked the end of a 40-year relationship between the league and Turner Sports, and though WBD sued the league to try to keep the rights, it settled out of court in November. (With that said, “a separate agreement between WBD and ESPN will keep [WBD] in the mix with some NBA content, production partnerships, and licensing deals,” CNBC reported.) And like Disney, some of its sports streaming ambitions are tangled up in the Venu Sports venture that’s currently stuck in court.
Last reported subscriber count: 110.5 million.
Paramount+
Wins: This year proved to be a rollercoaster for Paramount, but a rocky period of transition hasn’t stopped the company from building out its ads business: Paramount+ rolled out price hikes across its tiers in August and September and ad tier plans in Canada in April and in Australia in June. Paramount also debuted a shoppable ads partnership with Shopsense. Oh, and in July, Paramount announced plans to merge with Skydance.
Content-wise, the streamer enjoyed hits like the latest installment of Yellowstone and Tulsa King Season 2. Paramount is also currently promoting Gladiator II, which will likely hit the streamer in the coming months.
Misses: The company had a chaotic lead-up to the finalization of its deal with Skydance, with other competitors like Sony vying for the property, and it has undergone several rounds of layoffs this year. Meanwhile, longtime Paramount CEO Bob Bakish departed the company in April and was replaced by a trio of execs acting as co-CEOs.
Last reported subscriber count: Around 72 million.
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