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Streaming services are offering a multitude of bundles as they try to expand their ad-supported audiences.

A breadth of programming will help Peacock move toward profitability and weather economic uncertainty, discouraging subscribers from canceling their subscriptions as consumers cut back expenses. Our take: NBCU鈥檚 strategy differentiates it from both pure streaming players and traditional media networks that haven鈥檛 successfully developed integrated approaches.

However, the company hasn鈥檛 clarified how users would be charged, whether ad-free Reddit Gold subscribers would get access to paywalled content, or if moderators for those exclusive subreddits would be paid. Shifting toward ecommerce: Many subreddits serve as unofficial marketplaces for trading and selling items like clothing and shoes.

The news: YouTube is escalating its efforts to woo content creators with fresh monetization features, including Members Only Shorts, which enables creators to offer exclusive content to their paying subscribers. This new functionality is akin to TikTok's Series feature, which allows creators to monetize their videos through a paywall, with pricing options ranging from $1 to $190.

So it seems like maybe some other streaming services are saying, "Hey, why can't we also create an event around sports and use that as a hook to pull people into our streaming platform?". Daniel Konstantinovic:. Yeah, I mean Netflix notably until recently lacked a major sports rights deal.

OpenAI鈥檚 Sora, which generates videos from text prompts, images, and videos, is available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers and allows users to generate up to 50 videos at 480p resolution each month. Luma AI鈥檚 Dream Machine offers an intuitive interface and personalization features that could compete directly with Adobe鈥檚 Firefly.

Amazon is shaking up the streaming CPM market: Prime Video ads will launch with $30 CPMs at the end of the month in a sign that streaming ad costs are stabilizing.

Google鈥檚 Veo 2 launch: Gemini Advanced subscribers can now experiment with its high-end, text-to-video generator, Veo 2, which was previewed in December. Users can create 8-second video clips on web or mobile. Veo 2 costs 50 cents per second, or $30 per minute. By comparison, OpenAI鈥檚 Sora is bundled into its $20/month ChatGPT Plus and $200/month Pro plans and can generate 8- to 10-second videos.

The mobile-only plan with ad-free music and limited offline listening didn鈥檛 get a wide release perhaps to avoid losing higher-paying subscribers. Amazon鈥檚 Prime video-only subscription has almost no marketing and has been absent from investor calls since its 2016 introduction, indicating that the video-only version may have hurt core Prime memberships.

Why it matters: Streaming costs are climbing鈥攁nd viewers are already adjusting their spending. The average cost of streaming subscriptions jumped 22.2% YoY in 2023, far outpacing both pay TV increases (4.8%) and inflation (3.6%), per our analysis; In 2024, streaming subscriptions increased 12.6%, again outpacing both other measures, though less dramatically.

Our take: The IPG deal is a major vote of confidence in Prime Video advertising and could cause other major ad-supported streaming services still gaining a foothold in the market to seek out similar partnerships. With TNF as an anchor for its video advertising business, Amazon has quickly emerged as a major competitor in the ad-supported streaming race.

We expect Netflix鈥檚 new ad-supported subscribers to watch the service somewhat less than the cohort paying full price. The same story will play out with Disney+: We expect its time spent to decline by 1.0% this year thanks to its less-engaged ad-supported viewers. Estimates for Hulu and the other sub OTT services were not affected by the writers strike.

The number of companies generating more than $1 billion in annual US CTV ad sales more than doubled from two in 2020 to five in 2024. With ad dollars spreading out among services, a few streaming platforms stand out because of their heavy usage.

Netflix previously canceled its Basic tier for new subscribers in Canada, the US, and UK last summer. The ongoing phaseout is for existing subscribers. Kicking into gear: In January, Netflix stated it would make a concerted effort to convert Basic subscribers to ad-supported tiers.

A whole new world: Netflix鈥檚 global subscriber numbers are relatively healthy. Netflix added 1.75 million new subscribers in the first quarter of 2023, the third consecutive quarter of positive subscriber growth. The platform is facing a little trouble in North America: Subscriber numbers in the US and Canada are stagnating, hovering around 74 million since the end of 2020.

In 2023, there will be 7.1 million more US paid digital audio subscribers than last year, totaling 142.5 million people. This boost, plus a surfeit of price hikes, led to our upward revenue revision. Read the full report. This was originally featured in the eMarketer Daily newsletter. For more marketing insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.

Netflix garnered 15 million ad-supported subscribers within a year of launching the more affordable model. Ad-supported US Netflix viewers will reach 13.0 million next year, per our September 2023 forecast. Ad revenues for Disney+ will pass the $1 billion mark by 2025, per our forecast. Listen to the full episode. This was originally featured in the eMarketer Daily newsletter.

Netflix remains a revenue leader in the streaming space, however tariff concerns and tightening budgets for both consumers and advertisers have increased the pressure across all providers to stand out.

ESPN鈥檚 new platform marks a bold digital pivot: Meanwhile, Fox is launching Fox One to stay competitive in the streaming era.

Spotify is the biggest player in the US digital audio market with 36.3% of paid digital audio subscribers in 2023. This year, YouTube Premium (28.6% of subscribers) will take over Apple Music (28.4%). While Spotify鈥檚 share of the digital audio market as a whole will shrink slightly, its podcast listener share is increasing.

Well, this capability has always existed with streaming services and it was one of the selling points of moving away from the cable bundle into the streaming era.

This year, streaming services will finally earn more than traditional TV in subscription revenues.