The Streaming Wars

Amazon and Charter are increasing their streaming leverage by owning the discovery, billing, and checkout infrastructure that turns audiences into paying customers, while MS NOW is moving the other way by building a direct membership business. As churn and acquisition…

Disney is bringing Dhar Mann Studios into its content ecosystem with a 20-episode order that gives Disney+ access to a high-volume, creator-led production model built around faster development, frequent releases, and rapid audience feedback. The deal could give Disney a…

Netflix is making premium CTV access a bigger competitive advantage for Amazon DSP, The Trade Desk, DV360 and Yahoo as it expands programmatic buying across pause ads, live inventory, audience targeting and new deal tools. Supported DSPs can keep more…

Basics of Streaming explains how services use behavioral, billing, content, and playback signals to predict subscriber churn. The business value comes from identifying why someone’s likely to leave, choosing the right intervention, and proving that action creates incremental customer value.

Amazon's $2 billion Latin America investment will use local originals and live sports to drive audiences into Prime Video while expanding third-party subscriptions, rentals and purchases. By controlling discovery, billing and checkout, Amazon can monetize that traffic through advertising, Prime…

Charter Communications has closed its $34.5 billion combination with Cox, adding 5.9 million internet customers and giving Spectrum a much larger base to cross-sell mobile, streaming and video products. The added scale also strengthens Charter’s leverage with programmers as broadband…

Jackbox is testing a cloud-streamed smart TV service that turns its party-game catalog into an always-available living-room product, with free ad-supported games and a broader subscription offering planned. The model gives Jackbox recurring revenue opportunities across advertising and subscriptions, creates…

Apple, Meta and Cosm are testing immersive sports experiences that could give leagues and other rights holders a new layer of inventory to reserve, package and sell separately from conventional broadcasts. The opportunity depends on contract language, but immersive, volumetric…

Amazon’s making Alexa+ free on Fire TV to drive more conversational discovery and capture more viewing-intent data. The strategy gives Amazon more opportunities to influence what users watch, subscribe to, rent and buy before they enter a streaming app.

From the Archives revisits how Roku built an advertising business that could monetize streaming activity even when it didn’t own the programming or sell the ads. Direct Publisher expanded ad-supported supply, Audience Marketplace layered Roku’s first-party data onto publisher inventory,…

MS NOW will launch its first direct membership product September 9, giving Versant a direct streaming, billing and customer-data relationship after losing Peacock as a distribution path. The real test is whether MS NOW can turn its large cable, podcast…

David Ellison’s $6 billion synergy target for a Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery combination could put 4,500 direct Los Angeles film and TV jobs at risk, with the broader impact reaching roughly 10,360 job-years and $2.78 billion in economic value over three…