What the Next Phase of the Streaming Wars Looks Like

By Vitrina Research Team | Published: July 21, 2026 | Updated: July 21, 2026 | 9 min read

What the Next Phase of the Streaming Wars Looks Like

The subscriber land-grab is over. For five years, every major streaming platform measured victory by a single number: total paid subscribers. Netflix chased 300 million. Disney+ chased 200 million. Peacock, Paramount+, and Max chased respectability. Most hit their targets – and found that raw subscriber counts don’t pay bills, satisfy shareholders, or sustain the content budgets that made streaming compelling in the first place.

Global SVOD revenue reached an estimated $159 billion in 2026, according to Statista’s Digital Media Outlook. But the metric that actually matters in boardrooms has quietly shifted – from how many subscribers a platform has to how much each subscriber is worth. Average revenue per user, advertising yield, churn rates, and bundle attachment all now carry more weight than raw subscriber totals. The next phase of the streaming wars is a fundamentally different competition.

For media executives, content producers, independent studios, and distributors, understanding the next phase isn’t academic. It directly shapes which platforms are actively acquiring content, which are pulling back commissioning budgets, which territories are opening up, and where the strategic opportunities for your slate or services actually lie. This analysis is a companion to our coverage of who is winning the streaming wars in 2026 and our Netflix vs Amazon comparison for supply-side operators.

Phase 1 of the streaming wars – roughly 2017 to 2023 – was defined by subscriber acquisition at nearly any cost. Netflix crossed 300 million paid subscribers in early 2025, according to its Q1 2025 shareholder letter. Disney+ surpassed 150 million subscribers in 2023 before reporting a net decline that forced a strategic reset. Amazon Prime Video, bundled inside a logistics and e-commerce platform, quietly accumulated one of the largest global audiences without ever competing directly on subscriber economics.

The land-grab achieved several structural outcomes that now define the competitive landscape. It established global infrastructure – content libraries, localization capabilities, payment systems, and recommendation algorithms – that would be nearly impossible to replicate from scratch. It trained hundreds of millions of households to pay for streaming subscriptions. And it set a content quality benchmark, particularly in scripted drama and prestige film, that has permanently raised audience expectations.

But it also created structural problems that Phase 2 must solve. Content budgets ballooned to unsustainable levels. Netflix’s content spend peaked at approximately $17 billion annually. Competitors spent proportionally in an attempt to keep pace. Many of those investments produced content that attracted subscribers in Year 1 but failed to retain them through Year 2. Churn became the metric that exposed the fundamental economics problem hiding behind subscriber headline numbers.

Phase 2 of the next phase streaming wars is a profitability competition. Netflix’s advertising tier, launched in late 2022, reached over 40 million monthly active users globally by early 2024, according to Variety. That number signals something important: a meaningful segment of the global audience is willing to watch advertising in exchange for a lower price point. And for platforms, each ad-tier subscriber can be more valuable than a standard-tier subscriber if ad rates are set correctly.

Average revenue per user is the number driving strategic decision-making in Phase 2. Platforms are raising prices on premium tiers, restricting password sharing – Netflix’s password sharing crackdown added an estimated 6 million paid memberships in a single quarter in 2023, according to Reuters – and engineering product experiences that increase the perceived value of staying subscribed.

Churn reduction is the other side of the ARPU equation. A subscriber who cancels after one title and re-subscribes for the next is worth far less than one who maintains a continuous relationship. The platforms winning Phase 2 are those building churn-resistant content libraries – which means consistent release of must-have content rather than occasional tent-pole drops. Sports rights, as discussed next, are the most powerful churn-reduction asset available.

Live sports has become the single most contested content category in the next phase of the streaming wars, and for good reason. The rights fees are enormous – Amazon’s deal for NFL Thursday Night Football cost approximately $1 billion per year, according to Bloomberg – but sports content delivers something no scripted drama can: appointment viewing that drives subscribers to stay subscribed for the full season.

Netflix made its own move into live sports in 2024, securing rights for WWE Raw and Christmas Day NFL games. Apple TV+ holds Major League Baseball rights and has quietly built a credible sports offering despite its smaller subscriber base. The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics rights – a package that will span multiple platforms and rights holders – is widely expected to be a defining rights negotiation of the late 2020s.

For content producers and distributors who don’t work in sports, this matters indirectly. Sports rights spending crowds out scripted and documentary commissioning budgets. A platform that commits $3-4 billion annually to sports rights has that much less to deploy on the kind of international content acquisition where independent producers have historically found placement opportunities. The next phase streaming wars sports battle is also a resource allocation battle that affects every content category.

Bundle packaging has emerged as the dominant distribution strategy of Phase 2, with Disney leading the pack. Disney’s combined Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+ bundle is the clearest example of a platform using content portfolio breadth to reduce churn and increase household ARPU. Disney’s streaming segment turned profitable in Q4 2024 for the first time in the platform’s history, a milestone that Deadline directly attributed to bundle economics rather than subscriber growth alone.

Telecom-streaming bundles are also reshaping distribution. T-Mobile’s partnership with Apple TV+ and its Netflix inclusion deals, Comcast’s Xfinity bundles with Peacock, and Verizon’s content package deals all reflect a structural convergence between traditional broadband and wireless providers and streaming platforms. These bundles are becoming the primary way platforms reach price-sensitive households who would otherwise churn or never subscribe at retail price.

Outside the US, bundle dynamics vary considerably by market. In India, Jio’s platform consolidation brought Disney+ Hotstar, JioCinema, and other content under a single subscription. In the UK and Australia, the bundling conversation is less advanced but accelerating. For content distributors operating across territories, the bundle ecosystem creates both access complexity – which entity actually holds rights across a bundle? – and opportunity, since bundled platforms often need broader content libraries to justify their combined value proposition.

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Subscriber growth in North America and Western Europe is essentially saturated. The next wave of meaningful subscriber expansion is concentrated in Southeast Asia, Latin America, MENA, and parts of sub-Saharan Africa – markets where smartphone penetration is rising fast, middle-class disposable income is growing, and local content demand is outpacing the available local supply. According to PwC’s Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2025-2029, APAC will account for the largest share of global SVOD net subscriber additions through 2029.

The catch is that these markets don’t convert on Hollywood exports. Netflix’s experience in India, South Korea, and Turkey has demonstrated that local-language content is the subscription driver in each territory. Netflix’s Korean content slate – from “Squid Game” to “Physical: 100” – generates international viewership as a bonus, but it was commissioned primarily to win and retain Korean subscribers. The same logic applies to Turkish dramas in MENA and Brazilian telenovelas in Latin America.

For independent producers and distributors operating outside the US, this regional focus represents a meaningful opportunity that didn’t exist during Phase 1. Platforms that ignored regional content producers in 2018 are now actively competing for local co-production relationships and content acquisition deals. The question is which platforms are building genuine commissioning infrastructure in each territory – and which are simply licensing content opportunistically without long-term commitment.

Industry consolidation is an accelerating force in the next phase streaming wars. The economics of running a sub-scale streaming platform are increasingly brutal: content costs are high, subscriber acquisition costs are rising, and advertising yield depends on scale that only a handful of platforms currently achieve. Paramount+ and Showtime merged content operations under a single brand. Warner Bros. Discovery combined HBO Max and Discovery+ into Max. The trend is clear – fewer, larger platforms with more diversified content portfolios.

The most-discussed potential combination in 2025 and 2026 is some form of deal involving Comcast’s Peacock and NBCUniversal assets, either through a spin-off, sale, or partnership. Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount Global, which closed in 2024, has also reshuffled who owns which content library and streaming infrastructure – with downstream implications for how Paramount+ positions itself in Phase 2. Variety reported the Skydance-Paramount deal’s close created new strategic flexibility for streaming repositioning.

The consolidation wave matters beyond headline deal announcements. Each merger changes which content libraries sit under one ownership umbrella, which platforms content producers have effective access to, and which companies are in a position to commission new content versus simply managing existing IP. For distributors, a merger between two platforms often means a temporary pause in acquisition as newly combined entities rationalize their content strategies – which can create displacement opportunities for producers who knew in advance which platform was about to stop buying.

The profitability pivot has direct consequences for the supply side of the streaming ecosystem. When platforms prioritize ARPU over subscriber growth, content commissioning budgets often face pressure – but the pressure isn’t uniform. High-engagement content that demonstrably reduces churn attracts continued investment. Content that fills catalogue depth without driving meaningful retention is being cut first. Independent producers who can demonstrate engagement data, prior platform performance, or genre-specific demand signals have a stronger negotiating position than those offering content on spec alone.

Live sports rights inflation is squeezing the scripted and documentary budgets at platforms that compete for sports audiences. However, platforms that don’t pursue sports – Apple TV+ is the clearest example – are doubling down on prestige scripted content as a differentiator, creating specific acquisition windows for producers with premium drama and limited series. Knowing which platforms are sports-heavy versus scripted-heavy in their current budget cycles is actionable intelligence for any content supplier.

The platforms actively expanding regional commissioning infrastructure in 2025-2026 represent the most significant opportunity for international independent producers. Vitrina’s VIQI database tracks platform partnership activity across 190+ territories, and the pattern is consistent: platforms building genuine local commissioning operations – as opposed to simply licensing existing content – are disproportionately active in establishing long-term relationships with local production partners, often 12-18 months before significant commissioning budgets become publicly visible.

Distribution strategies also need updating for Phase 2. The window structure that governed theatrical-to-streaming release has compressed dramatically. FAST (free ad-supported television) platforms are absorbing library content that previously had limited distribution options. For distributors, the bundle ecosystem means that a single content deal may now need to navigate multiple platform relationships within one corporate entity – a complexity that requires more granular intelligence about who actually holds acquisition authority within bundled platform structures.

The strategic complexity of Phase 2 – multiple platforms pursuing different profitability levers across different territories with different content priorities – requires a level of market intelligence that trade headlines alone can’t provide. VIQI by Vitrina aggregates and structures data on 400,000+ M&E companies across 190+ territories, giving media executives and content suppliers a searchable intelligence layer that covers platform acquisition patterns, distributor relationships, co-production partnerships, and company-level contact intelligence in one place.

For content producers evaluating which platforms to approach for a new project, VIQI surfaces the production companies and distribution partners each major streaming platform has been working with by territory, genre, and content category. For distributors navigating the bundle ecosystem, VIQI maps the ownership relationships and acquisition contacts within bundled platform structures – identifying who actually makes buying decisions, not just who the platform’s public-facing development team lists. For studios tracking consolidation activity, VIQI’s deal flow intelligence tracks partnership announcements, acquisitions, and content licensing activity across the global M&E ecosystem in near real time.

The next phase streaming wars will move fast. Platforms will announce and abandon strategies across multiple competitive fronts over the next 24-36 months. The media executives who can identify shifts in platform acquisition behavior before they become public knowledge – because they’re tracking the underlying company activity and partnership patterns that precede strategy announcements – are the ones who will secure the best deals in Phase 2’s windows of opportunity.

The next phase of the streaming wars is not a continuation of Phase 1 with different scorekeeping. It’s a structurally different competition with different winners, different content investment patterns, and different opportunities for the companies that supply and distribute content. The platforms that succeed in Phase 2 will be those that solve the ARPU problem, build churn-resistant content portfolios around sports and prestige scripted content, package their services intelligently within telecom and tech bundles, and establish genuine commissioning infrastructure in the regional markets where the last meaningful subscriber growth sits.

For content producers, distributors, and independent studios, the most important takeaway from Phase 2 is that platform acquisition behavior is becoming more targeted, not less. The era of platforms buying broadly to fill catalogue depth is largely over. The platforms commissioning and acquiring in 2026 are looking for content that solves specific strategic problems: engagement in key territories, genre gaps in their sports-adjacent programming, local-language content for regional subscriber retention. Producers who understand those specific needs – and can demonstrate how their projects address them – will find Phase 2 more navigable than the chaotic commission-everything period of Phase 1.

The consolidation wave is not finished. More platform combinations, carve-outs, and ownership changes will reshape the landscape through 2027 and beyond. Each will create transition periods where acquisition activity pauses, resumes, and shifts to new priorities. Staying ahead of those transitions – by tracking company-level intelligence rather than waiting for press releases – is the single most actionable competitive advantage available to media executives navigating Phase 2.