Streaming Services In 2024:, Questions For Netflix & More – Deadline

After last year’s Great Netflix Correction, the streaming sector in 2023 entered a decidedly more pragmatic phase.

As viewers continued to cut the pay-TV cord and increasingly look to streaming as their primary source of entertainment, subscriber levels stabilized and Netflix returned to its leadership perch after last year’s scare. Profitability for all players has become the new North Star. Top-line growth is always welcome, but Disney CEO Bob Iger spoke for many last February when he said the company had become “intoxicated” by the early gains by Disney+ and had therefore mismanaged its streaming business.

This year, the priority for many players (especially those outside of the fuzzy-math realm of Big Tech) became declaring that “peak losses” had been achieved and a path to success had been identified. One way for companies to relieve pressure on subscription revenue turned out to be as old as the living-room box itself: selling time to sponsors. Advertising-supported services, initially on the periphery of the business and seen as a somewhat down-market form of streaming, got a boost with Netflix and Disney rolling out ad tiers introduced at the end of 2022. Prime Video is set to join the ad ranks in 2024 and rumors persist about Apple TV+ possibly following suit, especially now that it has nearly doubled its monthly subscription price to $10 a month.

Bundling fever also gripped the streaming world, prompting ever-more-arch references to the cable bundle replicating itself via the internet. In-house bundles like those deployed by Disney and Paramount have been proven winners. The next chapter could see frenemies joining forces in the name of simplifying the experience for consumers while also reining in costs. “If we don’t do it to ourselves, I think it will be done to us,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said at a recent Wall Street conference. “It will be Amazon who does it, or Apple who does it, or Roku who does it. They’ve already started.”

Here is an overview (in alphabetical order) of the eight leading subscription streaming outlets in the U.S., with a look back at their 2023 highs and lows and a preview of what lies ahead in the new year:

Apple TV+

2023 Highlight: More movie real estate. Despite already having several Oscars on its shelf, Apple’s presence in the movie business hit a new level this fall with the wide releases of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and Ridley Scott’s Napoleon via distribution deals with Paramount and Sony, respectively. In 2024, output will increase, with Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle joined by George Clooney-Brad Pitt feature Wolfs, the Scarlett Johansson-Channing Tatum teaming formerly called Project Artemis and other biggies. Although Killers and Napoleon lost money theatrically, that doesn’t make them misfires. Apple’s goals in backing original films are quite different from those of most rivals. The tech giant is playing a longer game, and marquee films help lure and keep subscribers.

2023 Lowlight: Inflation. The company in November announced its second price increase in a year for U.S. subscribers, with rates jumping to $9.99 a month from $6.99. That incremental income will help defray some of the Pitt- and DiCaprio-sized expenses it is incurring, but it will also cause some subscribers to bail. After launching in 2019 without a library of pre-existing titles (no Suits comfort-food here), Apple TV+ arguably left itself vulnerable to churn.

Challenge for 2024: Getting into a groove with film-release windows. While progress in the movie arena was the top 2023 highlight, the influx of high-end titles hasn’t yet redefined the Apple TV+ app experience. It wasn’t that long ago that the library-starved service was licensing catalog film favorites to line its virtual shelves. Now that it has new wares to exhibit, how will it do so and also avoid confusion with the other side of the house, Apple TV, where Apple Original Films are made available for rent and sale a few clicks from where subscribers can stream them for free.

Biggest question: With Ted Lasso all but certainly done after the third season finished last March, what show will step in to carry the mantle as the signature Apple TV+ title? Winning armloads of Emmys while also transfixing pandemic-weary viewers — the show will be a hard act to follow.

Disney+

2023 Highlight: Stopping the bleeding. While Disney’s streaming business is still operating at a loss, the Mouse House deficits have been shrinking. In its fiscal fourth quarter, Disney reported $387 million in streaming losses, down from $1.4 billion in the same period in 2022.

2023 Lowlight: Cuts, cuts, cuts. Disney has remained committed to its 2024 profitability projections, but at what cost? Sweeping layoffs, executed in three waves, saw thousands of employees exit (many in streaming) as the company delivered $7.5 billion in overall corporate cost savings. But the company was also slapped with multiple lawsuits this year over alleged sleight-of-hand accounting the company used to hide streaming losses.

Challenge for 2024: Finding freshness. So far, Disney has relied heavily on well-known IP like Marvel and Star Wars to bolster its streaming service — to the point that audiences are feeling fatigued. As the surprising run of Peter Jackson’s nearly 8-hour Beatles docuseries Get Back proved, the streamer would do well to lean into more original content, or draw from more dormant IP. This month’s arrival of an episodic take on Percy Jackson and the Olympians could provided a needed breath of fresh air.

Biggest question: How will the Disney+ one-app integration with Hulu, which comes out of beta next March, help bolster the service and retain subscribers?

Hulu

2023 Highlight: Ownership clarity. Hulu charged full-speed ahead through the unknown in 2023, as Comcast and Disney sought to determine how to reconcile the former’s 33% stake. (Ultimately, an $8.5 billion check was written by Disney.) Despite being in a state of limbo, Hulu’s slate of critically acclaimed and award-nominated content only continues to grow, especially with the FX on Hulu banner, helping boost the streamer to 48 million subscribers in 2023. 

2023 Lowlight: User unfriendliness. As Deadline pointed out last year, Hulu still suffers from an outdated user interface, which often makes it hard to navigate. While it’s overdue for a fresh coat of paint, that might not even be necessary given the uncertainty of the streamer’s entire existence heading into 2024. 

Challenge for 2024: Hulu boasts a robust library of original content including FX on Hulu titles. Balancing the user interface of the one-app to properly highlight these titles will be a challenge for the family-oriented Disney streaming service, as “adult” titles have long been relegated to Hulu in the U.S. 

Biggest question: With the combined Disney+ and Hulu one-app launching in March, how long will Hulu continue to exist as a stand-alone service?

2023 Highlight: The streamer ended the year on a high note with the successful launch of CNN Max, which seems to be attracting a younger crop of viewers with its suite of live news and analysis programs and original shows.

2023 Lowlight: Labor. This year’s dual strikes shone a light on growing tensions between creatives and studios as they seek to make their streaming divisions profitable, and Warner Bros Discovery took a particularly hard hit in the arena of public opinion as it axed more films for tax write-offs and canceled streaming originals like the Gossip Girl reboot. Removing the platinum HBO name from the streamer’s title also didn’t do it any favors. 

Challenge for 2024: The Warner Bros. Discovery streaming service has been buoyed by HBO content since it launched. With the end of Succession and this year’s dual strikes delaying series like The Last of Us, The White Lotus and Euphoria from churning out new seasons, the service may suffer from lack of new prestige content in the coming year. 

Biggest question: How will Warner Bros Discovery’s significant amount of debt continue to impact its streaming decisions?

Netflix

2023 Highlight: Making strides with the twin corporate priorities heading into this year: advertising and paid password sharing. Netflix estimated in November that its subscriber base on the $7-a-month ad tier had reached 15 million. While that was triple the number from May of last year, it is still a small slice of its global base of 247 million subscribers. Backlash to the password crackdown was more muted than had been expected, even by the company’s own account.

2023 Lowlight: Squid Game: The Challenge may have already gotten a Season 2 renewal, but the competition-show spinoff’s mere existence confounded many. Wasn’t the scripted Squid Game intended as a pointed critique of the idea of desperate contestants jumping through endless hoops to win cash prizes?

Challenge for 2024: Showing ROI from video games. Two years into the effort, Netflix now has almost 90 games on mobile and is moving toward making more of them available on computers and connected-TVs. It has also licensed Grand Theft Auto and plans a new Sonic game next year, along with a host of synergistic titles leveraging the popularity of episodic titles like Too Hot to Handle, Squid Game and The Queen’s Gambit. But it’s crowded out there. Can Netflix break through or is this all a cash-siphoning distraction kind of like, well, DVDs?

Biggest question: Will this be the year Netflix finally shows its ability to build true franchises from its own roster of originals?

Paramount+

2023 Highlight: Utilizing innovative partnerships to drive streaming growth, including Walmart+ and Delta Airlines in the U.S. Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish, who rose through the ranks as an international exec, has also overseen a number of “hard-bundle” deals with distributors in key territories. Paramount keeps less of the profit (and sometimes the viewership data) from these deals, but they are a less-expensive way to acquire subscribers.

2023 Lowlight: A lack of buzzy original titles. Barely anything from the service cracked the Nielsen streaming Top 10 this year, aside from Taylor Sheridan fare and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The rebrand of the combined service, now called Paramount+ With Showtime (just like the linear channel), has also landed awkwardly in some corners.

Challenge for 2024: Proving to Wall Street that it has a path to profitability is Job 1, while 1A is trying to generate more compelling programming. On the latter, embracing live and linear in streaming may hold the key. P+ wouldn’t have to look far for that kind of cost-efficient boost and could more closely align with well-oiled corporate sibling Pluto TV.

Biggest question: What would a new corporate owner do with Paramount+? With Shari Redstone fielding offers for her family’s controlling stake in Paramount via National Amusements and Bakish and Warner Discovery CEO David Zaslav also having discussed a merger, the fate of streaming is uncertain heading into the new year. Some Wall Street voices have called for the streaming service to be shuttered in the name of cost savings, but those 63 million subscribers are likely worth something to somebody. A joint venture could also be an option.

2023 Highlight: Peacock has seen big gains in live streaming for sports, especially NFL, this year and finally had some breakout scripted originals including Poker Face and Mrs. Davis. 

2023 Lowlight: While it saw subscriber growth this year (to 30 million, Comcast president Mike Cavanagh said this month), Peacock is still toward the back of the pack and also still booking losses.

Challenge for 2024: Although Peacock is filled with popular new-release films and series from NBCUniversal, the company will need to find a way to help its flagship service stand out as more than a synergy play in a sea of streaming originals. 

Biggest question: The streamer is hosting an exclusive live NFL playoff game in January (with no commercials in the fourth quarter, in an interesting gambit). Premier League and WWE have been major tentpoles for viewers. How much will Peacock’s content strategy continue to lean into live sports?

Prime Video

2023 Highlight: Thursday Night Football, in its second year as an Amazon exclusive, posted double-digit gains in viewership through most of the season. The games were higher-caliber (at least on paper) and the tech giant’s telecast overall seemed more sure of itself. Also, the suspicion that tech glitches could ruin the transition from linear TV has all but vanished, with the stream remaining stable despite broadband providers reporting that TNF eats up 25% of their total capacity on game nights.

2023 Lowlight: The news that advertising will run on Prime Video programming starting in early 2024 is certainly logical from a business standpoint. Consumers, though, will have a different experience than Netflix subscribers, who were offered an ad-supported tier as an alternative only if they wanted to trade down to a cheaper plan. On Prime, members will have to shell out $3 per month (on top of their $139 a year Prime membership, or $9 monthly Prime Video subscription) in order to not be shown ads.

Challenge for 2024: As in recent years, Prime Video will come into 2024 in need of refining its identity when it comes to original shows and films. It has racked up sizable viewership for series like Reacher or movies like Candy Cane Lane, but the current big-tent era has not yielded as many platform-defining titles that Prime Video had in the 2010s. Strategically, that may not be a bad thing. With companion outlets like Freevee, Twitch and Prime Channels enabling the Amazon video experience to emulate the e-commerce ideal of “the everything store,” there may be less urgency to find the next Squid Game or Mandalorian. But that fact can sometimes make Prime originals a little tricky to define.

Biggest question: How aggressive will the company be in trying to acquire more sports given the success of its NFL telecasts and its commitment to Major League Baseball and other top leagues? The NBA’s current rights deal with Disney and Warner Bros Discovery is set to expire after the 2024-25 season. Prime Video has often been mentioned as one of the likely suitors as the league looks to slice a piece of its growing pie for a tech partner.