By Michaela Gordoni
Streaming posted overall profits in 2025, driving a shift in how platforms evaluate performance.
Morgan Stanley predicts 2026 will consist of “streaming market repair” as “corporate spin-offs and continued cord-cutting are rapidly shrinking legacy TV as an investment factor.”
Linear TV spending is almost double that of streaming, even though some major companies got new streaming avenues. Disney launched a new ESPN app, and Fox Corp launched Fox One, Deadline reported.
Profits and losses are the classic measure of success, but Disney and Netflix may think differently now. They plan to phase out reporting of subscriber numbers and focus on revenues per user, engagement and other metrics.
Related: Television Metrics See Rebound in Streaming Usage
“If it’s something that subscribers use religiously and think they can’t do without, it’s a lot less likely to get cut,” Hub Entertainment Research founder Jon Giegengack said of why streamers aren’t looking at subscriber numbers anymore. “A platform that people only use sporadically doesn’t really have much opportunity to raise prices and will probably have more trouble growing their subscribers because they’re not achieving those network effects with the buzz of shows catching on.”
The switch to more engagement-focused metrics won’t be that simple, as streamers haven’t shared much data, like completion rates of viewing content.
“[Users sharing passwords] were the lion’s share of new subscribers they acquired in 2024,” movie and television producer Evan Shapiro told TheWrap. “As those newly paying subs who used to share accounts find it harder to find something to watch on the platform, especially in light of the recent price increase, they will start to churn. Netflix knew this last year, which is why they announced the significant shift in transparency” to talk more about engagement.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos emphasized engagement early this year: “When you’re going to ask for a price increase, you better make sure you have the goods and the engagement to back it up. And I feel like what we have going into 2025 is just that.”
One avenue for boosting engagement will be product innovation—new ways that viewers can interact with and navigate content. Peacock had great success with this during the Olympics. Viewers took advantage of its specialized sports viewing features.
Netflix is also trying out new metrics for advertisers. Netflix advertising chief Amy Reinhard cites monthly active viewers (MAV) as one such helpful metric. It counts viewers who have watched at least one minute of content on an ad-supported subscription and multiplies it by the number of people in a household. Reinhard says it’s a “clear and understandable” way for advertisers to find out how many viewers they’ve reached.
It will be interesting to see how streaming continues to evolve in 2026.
Read Next: Streaming Services Shift Strategy to Raise Profits
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