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- [00:00]
Matt Bellany
This episode of the Town is presented by HBO Max, presenting the HBO Original series Task for your consideration. In the working class suburbs of Philadelphia, an FBI agent played by Mark Ruffalo heads a task force to put an end to a string of violent robberies led by an unsuspected family man played by Tom Pelfrey. Don't miss the series. The Atlantic is calling, riveting and revelatory. Now streaming on HBO Max, Train Dreams.
- [00:26]
Announcer
Is now nominated for five Critics Choice Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay, and two Golden Globe Awards including Best Actor, Joel Edgerton, I.
- [00:36]
Matt Bellany
Don'T know where the years go.
- [00:37]
Announcer
It is also nominated for four Independent Spirit Awards.
- [00:40]
Matt Bellany
Figure it out, let me know. Like to ask for a few back.
- [00:42]
Announcer
And winner for Best Adapted Screenplay from National Board of Review. New York magazine hails it the Best Picture of the year. Train Dreams, now playing in select theaters and on Netflix. For your consideration. Maybe PG 13 may be inappropriate for children under 13.
- [00:55]
Matt Bellany
It is Wednesday, December 31st. It's our last show of 2025. Happy New Year. It's been a kind of weird year in the streaming business. YouTube has been the dominant story, of course. It really solidified its lead over subscription services and the time spent metric on TVs made some big inroads on traditional content. An exclusive NFL game and a deal to broadcast the Oscars. The Oscars on YouTube starting in 2029. Netflix the biggest paid streamer at more than 300 million subscribers. It's certainly mindful of YouTube. Netflix started going after podcasts, including some from the Ringer. Netflix still accounts for the majority of the hit shows across streaming. About 66% of the original programs in Nielsen's top 10 lists are from Netflix, according to Bloomberg. Still, Netflix no longer accounts for all of the hits, of course. In fact, the biggest show of the year in the US Is on Disney. The second biggest is on Hulu. Every major streaming service can brag about some show in the top 10. Although there were no new shows among the Nielsen top 10 streaming originals for the year, the first time that's ever happened, Netflix's overall share of streaming viewership has dipped below 20%. Cue its planned acquisition of HBO Max. That's a sign of the times. There really is competition out there this time of year. There's a million stats flying around, a lot of it weaponized to try to spin a narrative. So today we've got Julia Alexander back with us to parse it all. She's my colleague at Puck and a full time streaming video analyst. She's gonna take us through the year in streaming. The biggest hits, does heated rivalry qualify? We'll discuss that. Plus the struggling platforms and the biggest surprises and takeaways from the year in streaming. From the ringer in Puck, I'm Matt Bellany and this is the town. Okay. We are here with Julia Alexander, media correspondent at Puck, where I work, data analyst extraordinaire. Welcome back to the show.
- [02:52]
Julia Alexander
Thanks, Matt. How are you?
- [02:54]
Matt Bellany
Good. Happy holidays.
- [02:55]
Julia Alexander
Happy holidays. Were you able to relax? Did you unwind a little bit?
- [02:59]
Matt Bellany
No, but I'm not working very much. I don't really unwind. I know it's kind of sad, but I stayed in town in la, so it's nice. I'm enjoying the lack of crowds at the restaurants, no traffic. LA during the holidays. It's great. Love it. All right, so I want to get into the year in streaming, but I want to do some, like, big picture kind of view from 35,000ft above this because I feel like it's been kind of a relatively quiet year in streaming. These services are just kind of chugging along. And keep in mind, you know, separating out the fact that, like, HBO Max is probably going to merge with one of them, whether it's Netflix or Paramount Plus. Take that out. Let's just talk about where we are in the subscriber wars. Netflix is at 305 worldwide. 305 million, 308 million. Or do we not know? Because they're not telling us anymore.
- [03:57]
Julia Alexander
They even told us it's 300 million subscribers globally. 190 million on the ad tier. Right. They adjusted their ad numbers. Now they've got way more monthly viewers on that ad tier, but they are still sitting at kind of the top. If we just level set across the board, we have Prime Video somewhere in there, right?
- [04:17]
Matt Bellany
Yeah. Mystery number of people will actually watch. They don't tell us. It's kind of all a mushmash.
- [04:22]
Julia Alexander
Yeah. The last public number they gave on the subscriber number was Andy Jassy, CEO in 2024 saying like 200 million monthly active, which is still not a subscriber number. But then if we've got Disney at 131.6 million. This was surprising to me when I was doing the numbers, Matt, HBO Max at 128 million subscribers. They saw the highest number of gained subscribers this year as well. Like just in the span of one year.
- [04:49]
Matt Bellany
That's because they're opening in various territories. I mean, we've known this. They're expanding across the world and they are converting their output deals where they would sell their shows to other services in all these territories into HBO Max territories. And that's how they are growing. Correct. It's not like all of a sudden they're having huge HBO sub growth in the U.S. or anything.
- [05:12]
Julia Alexander
No. Heated rivalry is not driving 18 million subscribers.
- [05:15]
Matt Bellany
We'll talk about heated rivalry. As a Canadian, I'm sure you're very pro. Heated rivalry.
- [05:20]
Julia Alexander
Yeah, pro hockey in general. But I think if you look at HBO Max, similar to Disney, these are also two streaming services that aggressively pursue kind of these linear bundles. So we look at Disney with Charter, we look at what HBO Max does in international territories. So it's your point. They're expanding and they're also kind of licensing a lot of what they do, making these. These deals. Then you've got Paramount plus at about 80 million. 79.1 million, to be specific. Hulu at 60 million.
- [05:49]
Matt Bellany
So total Disney is up around 200.
- [05:51]
Julia Alexander
Yeah, yeah, it's up around 200. We've got Peacock at 41 million. And then Apple TV Plus. I've got three big question marks because we've never actually gotten a number from.
- [06:00]
Matt Bellany
Eddie Q. Eddy Q on this very show said that they are well above 45 million subs. What do you interpret or what are the. The outside services interpret that as meaning?
- [06:12]
Julia Alexander
I think we've seen anywhere between 30 and 40 is the number that I see a lot.
- [06:16]
Matt Bellany
Well, wait a second. He said. He said well above 45.
- [06:19]
Julia Alexander
I've seen numbers from outside that say 35, 30 to 40. So I don't know what he's saying versus what numbers are.
- [06:24]
Matt Bellany
Oh, so Eddie is lying.
- [06:26]
Julia Alexander
No, I don't think Eddie's lying. I think that it's such a convoluted task to figure out an estimated number of subscribers for a service like Apple TV plus that people are still just estimating to the best of their ability. And we don't have any actual numbers.
- [06:39]
Matt Bellany
Why is it convoluted? You either are or you aren't.
- [06:42]
Julia Alexander
I'm just saying on the numbers that I've seen, we haven't seen significant growth over the last year or 2 for Apple TV in terms of just pure numbers domestically and internationally.
- [06:52]
Matt Bellany
Hmm. So the gorge not bringing them in?
- [06:54]
Julia Alexander
The gorge, yeah.
- [06:55]
Matt Bellany
By the way, Craig is correcting me. He said significantly more than 40 or 45, so maybe he was hedging a little there too.
- [07:02]
Julia Alexander
Maybe the only number one I use, it's not a subscriber number, but I think it's important, is the YouTube monthly active users, because it's. You cannot talk about streaming in 2025 without YouTube. And that's anywhere between 2 and 2.5 billion MAUs globally.
- [07:16]
Matt Bellany
2 and 2.5 billion. Billion. What is the Netflix monthly active user number?
- [07:21]
Julia Alexander
They said 190 million.
- [07:23]
Matt Bellany
Okay, so this would be about 10 times the Netflix monthly active user, removing.
- [07:31]
Julia Alexander
The fact that there's no paywall.
- [07:32]
Matt Bellany
So, yes, I'm just gonna say, but yes, it is free. Netflix is not free. But when you talk about the streaming wars, and I'm sure this will come up in the antitrust evaluation of the Netflix Warner's deal, YouTube still dwarfs Netflix.
- [07:46]
Julia Alexander
Yeah, 100%.
- [07:48]
Matt Bellany
So let's get into some of the big shows of the year. Give me the top 10 from your perspective, because there's a lot of these services. There's The Nielsen top 10, which I like their numbers, but I, you know, acknowledge. They acknowledge it's only us. It's only on connected TVs. So there are limitations there. You go to Netflix and they're like, oh, those are not real. And Apple is like, well, we're. We're huge globally. It's like, okay, well, show us the numbers. No, we're not gonna show you the numbers.
- [08:18]
Julia Alexander
I think if you looked at the biggest shows of the year that spoke to where these individual streamers are in streaming, I think there's five or six titles you can talk about on the T shirt.
- [08:27]
Matt Bellany
All right, let's talk about the shows of the year.
- [08:29]
Julia Alexander
So I think for Disney, you look.
- [08:31]
Matt Bellany
At Bluey, Bluey's the number one show of the year.
- [08:34]
Julia Alexander
Number one show of the year. They license that title. It's exclusive to Disney in the United States. The fact that they can find this kind of cultural zeitgeist y sticky content for kids in an era of YouTube, in an era when kids are watching a lot of stuff on YouTube, like Cocomelon, like Ms. Rachel, which of course are now on Netflix as well. I think speaks to where Disney's strength has always lied with kids and will continue to. Because I think if you look at Disney outside of it, other than Andor, which landed in The Olsen's top 10, it kind of landed at number one back during the finale. It did almost a billion minutes. Other than Andor, Disney has not had a great year. Viewership has stagnated. Subscribe. Subscriber growth in the United States has stagnated. But Bluey is kind of this touchstone of, oh, this is what Disney could do really well, which is leaning into a market that Netflix is coming for that YouTube dominates but that parents still really like.
- [09:31]
Matt Bellany
Well, and it's the brand. The brand is Disney for families and they have this show. It's got to drive them nuts that they don't own it. I mean, countdown to when the Brinks truck backs up to that guy in Australia's house and Disney just buys the entire thing. I know it's complicated. I know the BBC is involved. There's a lot of things that go into Bluey, but they got to just buy it. I mean it's so dominant. 39.3 billion minutes as of November 9th according to Nielsen. By far the biggest show of the year. Of shows that are in the weekly top 10. Grey's Anatomy is number two, which is not Disney, but is a Hulu show. I think they license some seasons elsewhere as well. Squid Game number three, K Pop. Demon Hunters, a movie made it to number four for the year. Ncis. Gotta put NCIS in there. When the apocalypse comes, there will be cockroaches and NCIS left over. Then Wednesday, SpongeBob SquarePants Yay. Paramount. Bob's Burgers. Yay. Hulu. Animal Kingdom. That is hilarious because it's an old TNT show that was on Netflix this year. And then Blindspot, which is an old NBC show that was on Netflix this year. Those are the top 10 for most watched in 2025 as of November 9th.
- [10:53]
Julia Alexander
Well, and not on that list. But I think is also important from the streaming of 2025 story is love Island. If we look at streaming services that have really struggled, I think we can all agree Peacock is probably top of that list.
- [11:06]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, you didn't even mention Peacock in your initial. Your, your group.
- [11:10]
Julia Alexander
It's, you know, it's sitting there at 41 million subscribers. It is sitting stagnated there for the last two or three quarters.
- [11:16]
Matt Bellany
Domestic only.
- [11:18]
Julia Alexander
Domestic only. We've seen a bump of about 3 million subscribers over the last year. But Love island broke out. It was a multi day per week show. So people were tuning in.
- [11:29]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, Craig's watching. Craig watches like marathons.
- [11:32]
Craig Horleback
That's incorrect. That's, that's a lie.
- [11:34]
Matt Bellany
But okay, that's not a lie. You told me that you watch Love island and you watch it pretty religiously.
- [11:39]
Craig Horleback
You are just blatantly lying. But that's all right.
- [11:41]
Matt Bellany
We're going to litigate this elsewhere. But you. I'm going to go to the tape of love. I'm going to go to the tape.
- [11:46]
Craig Horleback
My wife watches all the time and it is on when I'm in the apartment. But that's about it.
- [11:50]
Matt Bellany
Okay.
- [11:51]
Craig Horleback
Couldn't name a character.
- [11:52]
Matt Bellany
I don't think the characters are what people are watching it for. But keep going, keep going.
- [11:57]
Julia Alexander
Here's what I like about Love Island. If you look at why Peacock is struggling, I think it's a really interesting streamer in that so much of what is available on Peacock that people want to. They can get through a VMVPD. They can get through, like, a YouTube TV, if the vast majority of it is broadcast television, some kind of financial news like CNBC or whatever it is, and then sports. If you have YouTube TV, you don't have to pay for Peacock. So in a moment when everyone is saying, okay, I'm trying to figure out how to balance all these different streaming services, there is this moment of consolidation happening around the virtual cable system where people are saying, I'll have YouTube TV. You know, it's sitting at about 10 million subscribers. It's growing. It's the fourth largest cable company in the United States now. And then they're saying, okay, and what do I not get through there? I do not get Netflix. Right. I do not get prime video stuff. Like, I cannot get this here. So I think if you look at Love island, which is this exclusive show to Peacock, it broke out. People are watching it. I think that goes to show that there is this interest in general entertainment reality programming that NBCUniversal has always done well. But so much of that content, because it's available elsewhere, is really hard to convince people to sign up for. And Love island did that.
- [13:09]
Matt Bellany
What about the. The Sarah Snooks show, All Her Fault? Was that a big hit this year?
- [13:14]
Julia Alexander
It was not a big hit this year, no.
- [13:16]
Matt Bellany
But it did break out. It didn't make the Nielsen chart, which is rare for a Peacock show.
- [13:20]
Julia Alexander
This is actually. It's funny, like, you and I were. Were talking about this in regards to Marty supreme, and I think the question is like, well, what is a general hit versus, well, what is a hit for a service with very few number of subscribers that no one's really watching? So in that regard, is it a hit? Yes. Is it a regard. Is it a hit compared to even a severance? No.
- [13:39]
Matt Bellany
Yeah. Well, it's funny. It's happening right now with heated rivalry, this gay hockey player show on hbo, where if that is your algorithm, it is being served to you over and over, and you think it's a huge hit. But let's see when the Nielsen numbers come out whether heated rivalry has broken through to the general culture. And I am betting that it has not.
- [14:03]
Julia Alexander
Yes. And on the heated rivalry front, we have a few datic dotes.
- [14:07]
Matt Bellany
Oh, please share.
- [14:09]
Julia Alexander
We do not have actual viewership number, but according to Variety had a cover story and they said they got this. It is the most watched original series ever on Bell Media's crave, which matters to no one but Canadian listeners.
- [14:23]
Matt Bellany
All right, that is like girlfriend in the Niagara Falls area. That does not mean anything. Like what? What does that mean? Sounds like a Hulu press release. Hulu is the worst at this, where it's like the most watched original on Thursday nights in the fall.
- [14:37]
Julia Alexander
Well, that so. And in the US and I'm quoting here, quote, it's now the top rated non animated acquired series on HBO Max since 2020 and it is among the top five all scripted debuts on HBO Max this year. So it's up there with like the Pit, I guess, in terms of a debut on the series.
- [14:56]
Matt Bellany
Okay, well, the Pit would be. I mean, the Pit's a genuine hit at this point. But let's see, let's see. When the Nielsen numbers come out by the end of the year, is Stranger Things going to be the biggest show of the year?
- [15:06]
Julia Alexander
It's a question of time. Right. So the debut of the newest season had about 8 billion minutes, according to Nielsen. It's the largest debut on Nielsen of all time. It's clearly a big show. Does the fracturing of it hurt the PR potential for Netflix, where they can say it's the biggest show of the.
- [15:24]
Matt Bellany
Year, maybe meaning it just the calendar year is going to end before the finale is really fully penetrated?
- [15:32]
Julia Alexander
Yeah, I think ultimately it's going to be top five for sure. Maybe top three. I don't know if it's going to be number one if it keeps going the way it's going. Right. I'm looking at like K Pop Demon Hunters and looking at what that did. 33, 34 billion, you know, aibling for this, I think it could do it, but I don't know. If there's just enough time in the calendar year for that to get across, it'll definitely be the biggest show for Netflix like it just will be. Happen this year. Yes.
- [16:00]
Matt Bellany
Okay.
- [16:00]
Julia Alexander
Yeah.
- [16:05]
Matt Bellany
This episode is brought to you by Warner Brothers Pictures. Presenting Sinners, written and directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Michael B. Jordan. Hailed as the best picture of the year. The New York Times calls Sinners a big screen exaltation, a passionate, effusive praise song about life and love, including the love of movies. And timeout says Ryan Coogler's Bold vision makes Sinners a true event. An exuberant widescreen experience that stirs the soul. Sinners is awards eligible in all categories, including best picture, best director and best Actor.
- [16:35]
Focus Features Announcer
This episode is brought to you by the Focus Features film Hamnet. From director Chloe Zhao and producer Steven Spielberg and Steve Sam Mendez discovered the untold story behind Shakespeare's greatest masterpiece. Winner of more audience awards than any film this year, Hamnet is a monumental cinematic experience. And now it's nominated for six Golden Globes and 11 Critics Choice Awards, including best picture of the year. HamNet, rated PG13, may be inappropriate for children under 13 now playing only in theaters.
- [17:06]
Matt Bellany
All right, so you have YouTube as the streamer of the year. Not a surprise there. You have Peacock and maybe Disney as the loser of the year.
- [17:15]
Julia Alexander
I've got Disney as the most disappointing streamer and I've got Peacock as the worst performer.
- [17:21]
Matt Bellany
Okay. And show of the year is Bluey. What is the biggest surprise hit of 2025?
- [17:28]
Julia Alexander
Well, I had it as he did Rivalry.
- [17:30]
Matt Bellany
Oh, you're gonna call it a hit? You are?
- [17:32]
Julia Alexander
Yeah, I'm gonna call it a hit because I think it has. Now, to your point, I think this is very important to talk about in general with entertainment and streaming. As we kind of drift into these hyper niches and then as those hyper niches are then supported and extended via Instagram Reels, via TikTok, via YouTube Shorts, it does make it seem like this is suddenly the only thing everyone's talking about, when really it's very something small that some people are talking about, but you are getting inundated with it. Do I think heated rivalry is going to be as big as a Squid Game or Stranger Things? Absolutely not. Do I think that for a show made in like 30 days that debuted on this Canadian streamer, that was a last minute acquisition that kind of broke through in a way that no one was expecting. I do. And here's why I think the, the. If it's a. If it's a surprise hit, here's why I think it matters. That show should have existed on Amazon Prime Video, and here's why. Amazon Prime Video has access to a collection of very, very good data as of 2025, because of the way that Amazon works. They have access to Prime Video. They have access to Amazon prime as a retailer, and they have access to Goodreads. They have a lot of access to what people are reading, to what is trending, and therefore what might be something that is worth acquiring. And so if you look at the interviews about Heated Rivalry. You've got the creator saying, I kind of saw that this was blowing up and I thought romantic is this big deal.
- [18:58]
Matt Bellany
These are books, these were very popular books that this author turned into the TV show and you're saying it should have gone to Amazon.
- [19:06]
Julia Alexander
Just look at the trend across the board. If you look at Spotify wrapped, the top 10 audiobooks on Spotify Wrapped are all these like smutty romantasy type books. It is a trend that people are spending more time with, they're spending more money on and they're willing to watch if it's good. Amazon, which had I think the seventh highest watch show of the year with the Summer I Turned Pretty, has access to all this data, has the audience, is trying to figure out that young female audience who was tuning into these types of shows and didn't do anything with it. But I think if this show heated rivalry really becomes a surprise hit, you will see a streamer like Amazon, like Netflix start to look far more heavily into these kind of romantasy type books that are dominating audiences and especially young women and middle aged women who are not well served compared to you. Look at Paramount plus and kind of the Taylor Sheridan universe. What's happening there?
- [19:55]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, I mean there may be a content issue. It's pretty hardcore gay sex. Maybe Amazon not into that. Maybe they have other stuff, you never know. But somebody turned pretty genuine hit on Amazon prime video. Correct.
- [20:08]
Julia Alexander
Huge hit.
- [20:08]
Matt Bellany
Is that the show of the year for them?
- [20:10]
Julia Alexander
The show of the year for Amazon. And I know this is going to feel like a cop out and you're going to go, oh, come on.
- [20:15]
Matt Bellany
Thursday Night Football.
- [20:16]
Julia Alexander
Thursday Night Football. Yeah, it is, but it is, it's.
- [20:18]
Matt Bellany
They lucked out. They got some really good games this year. They had that Rams game that was like, you know, last second win and they had some others.
- [20:26]
Julia Alexander
But even in general, you know, I think if you look at kind of as we take in all this data from 2025 and where streaming stands, if we look at kind of what the main three storylines have been, which I think is the rise of free. So I think actually my streamer of the year is not YouTube, it's Tubi.
- [20:42]
Matt Bellany
Oh, it is. Oh, friend of the town, Anjali Sud. So why is Tubi the streamer of the year?
- [20:48]
Julia Alexander
That platform or service compared to all these other services that we're talking about costs very little to run. It is not a very expensive service. They're doing some original programming, they've got a lot of licensed content and what they proved is that People are willing to sit through an insane amount of ads in order to just watch free content. And they'll watch old stuff, they'll watch stuff that was not popular before. And we've seen the share of Tubi pick up on the Nielsen gauge of the last year. In fact, if you look at all of the increases in shares, so just the overall time spent, if you combine Tubi and the Roku channel, both of which have seen pretty good growth, about 1.2% share and 1% share combined, it's on par with YouTube sitting at that kind of 2% growth overall. Everyone else, the next closest is Netflix with half a percentage growth. If the combination across the board bringing this into Amazon is people want to watch free content and people want to watch sports. Which is why I think that Amazon will bid on a very big exclusive package come the next NFL rights on top of Thursday Night Football. It's why they did the big deal with the NBA. It's why they're looking at more soccer deals.
- [21:51]
Matt Bellany
The NBA cup actually did rate 3 million viewers for the NBA cup final on Amazon, which was up pretty impressive given it's the first year on the platform. So what's the other one? The rise of free is. What are the other two trends for you?
- [22:04]
Julia Alexander
This one we didn't spend enough time talking about this year and I think it's so important, which is the rise specifically of social video on TV sets.
- [22:13]
Matt Bellany
Oh, like reels coming to TVs.
- [22:17]
Julia Alexander
And the reason why this is a big deal is to your point. Yes. Adam Mosseri, CEO of Instagram, says, we think TVs are, are a big potential opportunity for us, which is funny.
- [22:25]
Matt Bellany
Well, they see the YouTube numbers, right?
- [22:28]
Julia Alexander
Yes. But they also see the potential ad opportunity. Right. CTV Connected TV ad spending is going to be one of the biggest growth ad areas in 2026. And if you're Instagram, if you are a company that sees $50 billion a year in annual run rate revenue from reels alone, and you're seeing that people are spending more time watching this type of content on their TV sets, and 20% of social video time was spent with TV sets this year, you're going to say, of course we're going to lean into it. We're going to open our doors to a completely new area of advertising that we are currently not touching, that YouTube is going to get all of this growth from. So I do think if you are a streaming service, you're not worried that all of a sudden your 30 second Toyota ads are going to go away. But they are going to start chipping into overall CTV ad spend like TikTok will when it relaunches its app like YouTube currently is, even on the short side. And I think that is going to become a larger conversation as it all moves to the TV set.
- [23:27]
Matt Bellany
And that's going to ultimately be bad for the linear TV people, right?
- [23:31]
Julia Alexander
Yes, that is my assumption. My big, my big prediction is that this will be very, very bad for a lot of the linear companies.
- [23:38]
Matt Bellany
Yeah. I mean, because, you know, you used to be able as a salesperson for traditional broadcasters to poo poo the digital stuff. Well, why would you want to be adjacent to that sewer of user generated content? But now the sewer is on the TV and it's just another channel you flip to. And if you're competing directly and generating bigger numbers with the sewer, then maybe you hold the nose and jump into the sewer.
- [24:08]
Julia Alexander
Something you said at the top of the episode, which I think is very important, I think it's extremely accurate, is that this year in streaming kind of felt not boring, not, not, not, not even slow. It just started to feel like a regular business. It started to feel like, oh, cool, like it. Now we're just managing a business.
- [24:26]
Matt Bellany
Well, look at what Netflix is doing. They're trying to buy their way to growth with HBO and Warner Brothers. That's what regular old media companies do. That's not what tech unicorns do.
- [24:38]
Julia Alexander
Precisely. And so I think if you look at the change in psychology over the last five years where streaming was this hope that it was going to change consumer behavior, it was going to lower barrier to entry because people weren't doing cable so they would get more subscribers, it would change the type of things people watched. It would change all of this. That hope has, I think, diminished. I think there is an idea of like this is a business and we need to run it like a business and we need to figure out what that looks like. And at the same time that that's happening as the legacy companies are trying to figure out how to make that transition from linear to streaming. You've got three of the largest companies in the world coming in and saying, oh, we want to be on TVs. Actually we think that's a really good area for this. And people are spending more times on their phone with us. Anyways, the conversation around YouTube, you know, I've covered YouTube for close to 10 years. In 2017, 2016, you remember this. The conversation around YouTube was like terrorist content. It was like anti Semitic content. It was bad, bad. It was Hitler stuff. And a decade later, less than a decade later, the conversation around YouTube is that it is the future of TV. It's where Roger Goodell wants to put an NFL game.
- [25:47]
Matt Bellany
The Oscars. The Oscars. You're going to have the most glamorous people in the world parading on the red carpet on YouTube.
- [25:53]
Julia Alexander
And I think that speed, alongside all these other bets that Stringing executives thought they had to make the big, expensive Stranger Things, the big expensive Marvel shows, at the same time that Tubi and the Roku channel are like, great, we'll take whatever NCIS spinoff you don't want. It is a recalculation about the type of formats, the type of content that people want and what they don't necessarily need. And I think that we're starting to see that play out now where Netflix is saying, stranger Things is ending. We need big franchises. It's really expensive to build and it doesn't always work out. So we'd rather have Harry Potter, rather have Game of Thrones. And I think at the same time, you're going to see the Bob Iger or maybe Dana Walden or whoever it ends up being, and you're going to see the David Ellison types. All these new people coming in saying, we need to reexamine what streaming should be from 2025 to 2030, as opposed to using the same playbook from 2020 to 2025.
- [26:50]
Matt Bellany
What is your third trend?
- [26:52]
Julia Alexander
Sports. There's no way around it. It's a boring trend. But you're going to see far more companies bid on these expensive sports packages. Amazon, Netflix, Google. Coming in means that the cost of specific sports rights is going to continue to escalate, which means that all these other legacy companies are going to have to spend less on original content that's already happening.
- [27:14]
Matt Bellany
I mean, I know there's like a turf war going on at NBCUniversal because they're spending all their money on NBA and NFL. And yet you've got the content people saying, well, if you want to grow Peacock, you got to have some original shows and we got to be able to compete. And they're like, okay, yeah, you can go after Taylor Sheridan, but the majority of the spend is going to go to sports.
- [27:34]
Julia Alexander
It becomes a really interesting question for audiences about how that looks. So, like, if you play it out right, let's use the NFL. It's the biggest thing in the United States, according to Nielsen's big data.
- [27:44]
Matt Bellany
Right?
- [27:45]
Julia Alexander
It's the biggest thing in the United States, record breaking. If right now you are a big NFL fan, you have Sunday ticket. You get the vast majority of games. If Amazon and Netflix start to get more packages, then even something like Sunday ticket or whatever that looks like starts to become less valuable to consumers because they're going, well, how much am I missing out on? And this is a question I know like the NBA thought about when they were going through their rights deals. If you're a league, how do you balance ensuring that you're not fragmenting it too much? Even though audiences will go places we know they will, but that you're not fragmenting it too much in the same era where younger people are watching highlights on their phones and they're not watching full games and how do you ensure that you're still getting the amount of money that you're getting?
- [28:27]
Matt Bellany
Most important question, is anybody going to watch Craig's fantasy football show on Netflix?
- [28:31]
Julia Alexander
Craig?
- [28:32]
Matt Bellany
I will show Julia.
- [28:34]
Craig Horleback
This is really big.
- [28:35]
Julia Alexander
All right.
- [28:35]
Matt Bellany
This is huge. The ringer shows, the barstool shows, a bunch of other podcasts are now coming to Netflix. Is anybody going to watch these?
- [28:44]
Julia Alexander
Craig? I did an annual prediction.
- [28:47]
Matt Bellany
I feel like a punt. A punt is coming.
- [28:50]
Julia Alexander
No, this is Team Craig. I speak for every town listener. Team Craig. I predict that Netflix will invest even more into sports podcasts. I think people will watch them and I think they'll pull back on their sports documentaries.
- [29:02]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, that's much more urgent.
- [29:04]
Craig Horleback
Also, the sports doc landscape has gotten so saturated and the and like that the air of exclusivity or access that these things provide is completely gone now. It's all too curated.
- [29:14]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, it sucks. They all know it's a cash grab.
- [29:16]
Julia Alexander
The only thing I will say about the podcast on Netflix is I'm curious how they will approach the UI UX component, the kind of how you view and interact with podcast component. You know this idea of like, can people leave comments? Do they create a little community in there? I assume they don't for many reasons. But like I don't think Netflix has the capacity or the capability currently to do the kind of SEO mini channels targeting specific audiences when you break up podcasts into specific sections that YouTube does exceptionally well. When YouTubers started doing podcasts on YouTube, people forget they did separate channels. They would have the main channel for the three hour video and they'd have a separate channel with 10 minute clips that would target different audiences to build that audience. Netflix can't do that. I think there's a lot of very smart people who operate on YouTube knowing that the YouTube ecosystem for creators might get a little bit weird. Over the next two years, as more generative AI content is brought in and they want some more secure money up front from someone like Netflix. Absolutely. So I think people will watch. I don't think they'll be as successful as they would be on YouTube, but I think the people making these deals on the podcasting side are aware that YouTube might get a little hairy in a second and are just saying, let's try it here, and if it doesn't work, then we'll go back to YouTube.
- [30:31]
Matt Bellany
It's the money, too. They're paying.
- [30:33]
Julia Alexander
Exactly.
- [30:34]
Matt Bellany
So. All right, Julia, thanks very much. Appreciate the time.
- [30:38]
Julia Alexander
Happy New Year.
- [30:41]
Matt Bellany
We are back with the call sheet. Craig, will you be in line for the final episode of Stranger Things in your local multiplex theater? I will not.
- [30:52]
Craig Horleback
That doesn't mean I won't watch the finale. I have yet to start season five. I've watched all the seasons prior. I need to do it. I haven't found the time. They're long episodes.
- [31:01]
Matt Bellany
Oh. The finale is two hours and eight minutes. It's not an episode of tv. It's basically a movie.
- [31:07]
Craig Horleback
So this is coming out in theaters December 31st and the 1st. Only just those two days?
- [31:10]
Matt Bellany
Yeah. Okay, so here's what they're doing. Netflix agreed to let the theater chains play the finale for free. You do not have to buy a ticket for this, but the chains are requiring you to have a food and beverage minimum. So for instance, at AMC, our good friend Adam Aaron, they are requiring a $20 voucher for food and beverage. Some of the other chains are lower than this. The other reason it's free is because of residuals for the talent involved. If they are distributing it for money in theaters, they would have to pay residuals. Netflix didn't want to do that, so it's free. By the way, I don't want to toot our own horn here, but Ted Sarandos at Netflix and Adam Aaron at amc, they came together because Ted listened to Adam on the Town and started talking. And all of a sudden, they've got this great deal now where Netflix is giving them this finale essentially as a marketing stunt. But AMC is gonna make some serious money on this, and so are the.
- [32:08]
Craig Horleback
Other chains, because Netflix is not making any money on this. So if the tickets are free for customers, the food and beverage minimum of whatever it is, 20 bucks, that just goes all to AMC, correct?
- [32:17]
Matt Bellany
Yes. It is a pure profit thing, and Netflix is getting value out of it. They're creating hoopla. This is a marketing stunt for them, and it's Fan engagement for them. And they're getting people to go to the theaters to see a TV show. And good for them.
- [32:30]
Craig Horleback
It's day and day. Correct. Isn't like the second this hits theaters is the second it hits Netflix.
- [32:34]
Matt Bellany
Yeah, you can watch it on Netflix, where the vast majority of people will watch it. But if you are a super fan and you want to go out with your buds on New Year's Eve and dress up as 11 and watch Stranger Things, you can do it. The Duffers put out some numbers saying that they had sold 1.1 million tickets so far. Not sold, but that 1.1 million tickets had been acquired. And I am told that that is that about 600,000 of those are at AMC and the rest are at the other chains. The screen count on this one is interesting because it's at about 650 theaters, which if you add in all the screens, it could get up to like 2000 screens. If you start to do the math, it's looking like they will end up at about 1.2 to 1.4 million tickets, quote, unquote, sold for this. And if you, let's say the 20 bucks food and beverage at AMC, let's say, you know, the others are less, around 12, $13. Let's put the average at about 15. That's more than $20 million in revenue for these theater chains. I'm going to say that these theaters are going to make more than 20 million. On the Stranger Things stunt in theaters.
- [33:53]
Craig Horleback
Do you think this is going to start happening more that season finales on streamers will start to put their finales in theaters as marketing stunts?
- [34:01]
Matt Bellany
The theaters would love that. They want additional content wherever they can find it. They want sports stunts from big shows. They want anything they can do. They want documentaries from Taylor Swift. Whatever they can do to make up for the lack of blockbuster movies in theaters. The question is whether Netflix wants to do this in the future. And listen, if you can get 1.3, 1.4 million people to go watch your TV show in a theater and dress up, and that's pretty good marketing stunt. There'll be videos, there'll be social activity, all the things you want to eventize your content.
- [34:40]
Craig Horleback
I mean, also, it just sets up for in the future, you know, whatever happens with Warner Brothers Netflix. But, like, you might be able to go and see the release of Dune 4 and you can sign up for Netflix inside the theater and then you can watch the movie for half off.
- [34:54]
Matt Bellany
Well, the end game here might be Netflix subscribers get to see Warner Brothers movies in theaters, early access for free or for some kind, some kind of a discount. And Netflix will subsidize that in order to increase the box office. Something like that. Where there's a benefit to being a Netflix subscriber. So you get people to subscribe who may not around the world and you get to see the Batman the night before or you get to see a movie for a discount, something like that. I mean the theaters would have to be involved in that. But I think this is a win. Congrats to the theaters for getting $20 million. We may never know the number. I don't know if we're going to ever be, but I could probably report it. 20 million bucks is not nothing in this economy. So good for them. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest Julia Alexander, producer Craig Horleback, art editor Jesse Lopez and I want to thank you. We'll see you in 2026.
- [35:51]
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