The old streaming playbook of “scale at any cost” is gone, according to top media companies' recent earnings calls. Instead, streaming now shows a much more disciplined mix of profitable streaming, tech-forward product, and high-impact live content.

• US subscription over-the-top (OTT) ad revenues will grow 16.5% this year to reach $12.59 billion, according to EMARKETER's September 2025 forecast.

For marketers and partners, that means fewer experiments, more clarity on where the money is being made, and sharper expectations around premium inventory.

Streaming's profit engine

Major streamers are now talking about streaming as a real earnings driver rather than a drag, with Disney the clearest before-and-after example.

"Our streaming business had another quarter of profit growth… For the full year, we hit $1.3 billion in operating income, up $1.2 billion from last year, and $300 million ahead of our original guidance," said Disney CEO Bob Iger in their earnings call. "That is a significant achievement when you consider that just three years ago, our DTC business was running a $4 billion operating loss."

Over 40% (40.4%) of the US population is expected to be a Disney+ viewer by 2028, per our October 2025 forecast.

Warner Bros. Discovery is telling a similar turnaround story.

“Our streaming segment will contribute more than $1.3 billion in EBITDA to our bottom line this year, versus losing $2.5 billion three years ago," said Warner Bros. Discovery CEO and President David Zaslav on their earnings call. "We're delivering those results by investing hard and continuing to distinguish our offering through quality."

For advertisers, streaming's new status as a money maker could translate into more price discipline on inventory, more consistent product roadmaps, and less willingness to discount in search of subs.

AI moves beyond buzzword

For streamers, tech and AI are no longer side projects, they're now framed as core capabilities that touch product, operations, and creative.

"We've had a long history of developing machine learning and AI solutions," said Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters on their earnings call. He said genAI can bring "more capable tools, improve productivity, improve velocity of innovation, and deliver better results for members, creators, and partners."

Paramount is trying to close that tech gap fast and sees AI as an extension of their creative partners.

"Artificial intelligence, obviously, is going to have a significant impact across every business, and we do plan to utilize that here,” said David Ellison, Paramount Skydance's chairman and CEO on their earnings call. "We really view AI as a tool for artists to be able to iterate more quickly, to be able to tell better stories.”

For marketers, that means recommendation engines, ad-tech stacks, and measurement will get steadily more sophisticated with more differentiation across platforms.

• On the horizon, advertisers should prepare for more granular targeting capabilities, more dynamic creative options, and a tighter link between content signals and ad products over the next couple of years.

Live sports and events are high-impact, not high-volume

The draw of live sports and events continues to shape how streamers are positioning their businesses, but each company is using it differently. Netflix, for one, is leaning into big, global moments rather than full seasons.

For the streaming giant, September's Canelo vs. Crawford boxing match was “the most viewed men’s championship fight of the century. It had over 41 million live plus one viewers,” said Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos. “We believe these big events that attract mass audiences are kind of differentially valuable for our members.”

Nearly 60% of the US population (59.9%) will be a Netflix viewer this year, according to EMARKETER's October 2025 forecast.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros. Discovery is splitting its bets, with CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels saying “sports is going to be one key pillar of our strategy going forward,” including a standalone sports streaming app that can “partner and bundle with our own products and others in the market.”

With live events being more about spikes in engagement, acquisition, and ad demand, brands should focus on more curated, event-centric opportunities that are often tied to premium pricing and richer data.

This article was prepared with the assistance of generative AI tools to support content organization, summarization, and drafting. All AI-generated contributions have been reviewed, fact-checked, and verified for accuracy and originality by EMARKETER editors. Any recommendations reflect EMARKETER’s research and human judgment.