Streaming economics, format shifts, distribution and the future of television.
Fox said Tubi ended the fiscal year with 110m monthly active users, Q4 revenue up 35% and viewing time up 17%, with nearly 70% of viewers cord-nevers or cord-cutters and 96% of viewing on demand. That spread points to yield, ad demand and audience scarcity more than raw hours: Tubi is selling reach that linear TV increasingly cannot deliver.
Disney and iHeart are bringing six video podcasts into Disney+ and Hulu, while Acast bought Backyard Ventures for $20m to add 200+ creators across audio, YouTube, newsletters and social. Podcasts are becoming cheap, tested video IP; creator networks are becoming cross-format libraries that can sell audience, video rights and brand integrations across every surface.
Netflix reportedly wants embedded brand integrations removed before creator shows enter its service and is discussing Hot Ones. The platform protects its own ad inventory, but creators will need sponsor-safe edits, replacement economics or a license rich enough to cover revenue already built into the program.
Video podcasters are packaging back catalogs for Amazon Prime Video, Sling TV and Samsung TV Plus, adding reach and advertising without Netflix-style exclusivity. The opportunity is incremental yield from already-paid-for libraries; the test is whether carriage and playout costs leave enough margin.
NBC has greenlit a 2027 primetime game show hosted by Savannah Guthrie and produced with Jimmy Fallon, Universal Television Alternative Studio and The New York Times. NYT Games wants the show to re-engage lapsed players, turning broad TV reach back into product habit. Wordle plays fell to 4.2bn in 2025 from 5.3bn.
The company is cutting 268 roles and moving more production to a national hub as stations shift toward 24/7 streaming, AI and automation. Centralization can improve utilization, but the model only works if cheaper production creates more local reporting rather than thinner local presence.
From early 2027, US YouTube Premium subscribers get ad-supported Peacock Premium at no change to YouTube’s $15.99; the deal also extends NBCU on YouTube TV and makes NBC Sports a production partner on YouTube live events. Peacock just posted its first quarterly profit ($189m of EBITDA on 48m subscribers), so NBCU is trading ARPU for near-zero-churn distribution from strength, not desperation. Neither side raised a consumer price.
The internal name is the “free front porch”: select films and episodes in Q3 for a registered email and no card, mobile first, with live CBS and 4K withheld. Registration is the point: it converts anonymous sampling into an addressable ad ID and an upsell target.
Josh D’Amaro wants to reinvest a newly profitable division (Korean content, a behavioural AI recommendation engine, an eventual super app folding in Hulu and ESPN) after Disney+/Hulu posted $582m of Q2 operating income, up 88%, at a 10% margin. Nothing is built yet, and 4.8% monthly churn is why.
Business Insider found producers building AI series on performers’ likenesses without consent: one actor paid $5,000 for the original and nothing for the synthetic reuse, with standard “editing rights” language read as permission. The economics force it: non-China revenue hit $530m in Q1 on 775m monthly actives, but D30 retention runs about 2% and US ARPDAU has fallen from over $2.50 to under $0.50. When retention is that thin, production cost is the only lever left.
The Daily Express’s 5pm show drew 3,388,950 views in June, nine months after launch, edging the Telegraph’s Daily T by 0.3%. It got there by abandoning rotating panels for a fixed weekly rota, cutting showbusiness and replacing the chatty opening with a cold open. Full module below.
“FEED” is six 15-minute episodes with critic Jimi Famurewa, the first output of Guardian Studios under ex-Channel 4 commissioner Leah Green, and sponsored by Sainsbury’s with shoppable pop-ups in-episode. Branded lifestyle content inside a title whose funding pitch rests on independence.
Ticketing, rentals and free streaming unite under one brand, with the free library growing 20%+ (3,500 hours of Versant content) and a move upmarket into franchises and sports, starting with Bundesliga. The funnel is the asset: ~50m monthly Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes visitors, closing the loop from "what should I watch?" to "watch it here" - a distribution rail, ad stack and discovery engine Versant now owns outright.
Paramount+ is moving into vertical micro dramas, joining a fast-forming pack: Fox is producing 200+ vertical titles with Holywater, Disney's accelerator backs DramaBox, and Lloyd Braun and Cineverse built MicroCo around the format. A clear sign the Chinese-built format has crossed over - ReelShort (owned by China's COL Group) expects $1bn revenue this year on 70m monthly users and 400+ shows.
Goalhanger's show publishes Mondays and Fridays across the 40-week Premier League/Champions League season through Euro 2028, after its 40-day World Cup video run sat in Netflix UK's daily top ten throughout (peaking at No. 1, per Goalhanger); the show claims 7m+ monthly streams.
Edison's 2026 UK Podcast Consumer: YouTube is now preferred by 29% of weekly listeners vs Spotify's 28%; 72% watch podcast video (58% in 2023) though 87% still also listen audio-only.
NYT made the push a full-time job in March, hiring Tom Denison as video training editor to make coaching “systematic and aligned with video strategy, desk priorities and the newsroom’s evolving needs”; reporter-led video doubled YoY in Q1. WSJ’s Talent Lab, directed by Devin Smith (who built USA Today Sports’ creator network), runs as an always-on hub — broad training plus rotating cohorts getting one-on-one coaching in vertical video, podcasting and newsletter craft. Fortune debuts its ~20-minute daily show this month with rotating reporter co-hosts as a talent development machine.
25M views to date, with the daily 10am PT live show averaging ~100K views per episode — following last week’s app relaunch that put a TITV feed at the center of the product, as publishers move to create more homes and greater visibility for video within their apps.
Fox News Media drew ~1.4B YouTube views in Q2 and MS NOW ~763M — a combined run-rate north of 8B views a year from repackaged cable hits, making them two of the platform’s most-watched channels. The read: opinionated cable-news formats still sell, and they travel on YouTube at enormous scale even as linear collapses.
Netflix is discussing always-on, linear-style themed channels and selling third-party subscriptions — Peacock among them — as billed-through-Netflix tiles on its homepage. The forcing function is engagement: Netflix’s share of US TV viewing slid from 8.8% in January to ~7.8% in April (Nielsen) while YouTube hit 13.4%, and its ~$3B ad business needs inventory, which unskippable live programming manufactures. The bundle, reinvented by the company that famously first unbundled it.
Exclusive video rights to “Unexplainable” and “Switched on Pop” from the newly Lupa-owned Vox Media Podcast Network (audio stays on open platforms) follow the Spotify/Ringer deal in October and the iHeart pact in December that pulled ~15 shows’ video off YouTube. Same week: a short-form licensing deal with Penske’s PMX, and the announcement of new short-form clusters. The YouTube-ization of Netflix is a program, not an experiment.
Early internal discussions (July 9 streaming town hall led by product chief Adam Smith) about un-paywalling some Disney+ content to counter YouTube and Tubi; marquee franchises would likely stay paid. The strategic read: with free platforms at 19% of US TV watch time (Nielsen, up from 17% a year ago) and subscription growth stalling, FAST-style free tiers are becoming the acquisition funnel and ad-inventory engine.
: Spotify is embracing Apple's HTTP Live Streaming technology for video podcasts, simplifying cross-platform distribution for creators.
The iHeartMedia morning show becomes Netflix's first daily live program - three hours/day at 6am ET with platform-exclusive bonus segments - while continuing on 100+ radio stations simultaneously.
Roku is licensing content from YouTube creators including MrBeast, iShowSpeed, Prof G Podcast, and Modern Wisdom to launch free ad-supported channels and a dedicated creator discovery destination.