Netflix's Growth, Peacock's Struggles, and the New Streaming Hierarchy

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0:44It is Monday, February 2nd. Before we start, some big news for the town. We're on YouTube. Yes, video has come for the town. Same show, still on all the platforms you currently use, just now available with my face and my Dodger hats on YouTube and Spotify. The Town with Matt Bellany. Follow us with the link in the episode description. Please be nice in the comments. Craig gets his feelings hurt very easily. All right, on to the show. It's February, so we are officially done with the year-end charts and data and everything about what entertainment we all consumed in 2025. The stats have been coming fast and furious.

1:19Netflix's numbers were way up, but the share of the top shows declined. K-pop Demon Hunters blew away all the other movies, but Netflix made a lot fewer movies in 2025 than the previous few years. The biggest show of the year, according to Luminate, was Love Island, really? With Stranger Things just dominating in December? Feels a bit dubious. Heated Rivalry generated 8 million views per episode in December. Not bad, but not good enough for Nielsen's chart. Even today, Disney's earnings report revealed some growth in streaming, but disappointing numbers in streaming profits. And Comcast just announced another huge quarterly loss for Peacock.

1:57Remember back in 2020, Comcast predicted Peacock would be profitable in 2025. Not so much in 2026. Feels like there's been a flood of new streaming data lately, so we've got Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg back in here to discuss. We're each going to pick a couple big numbers that illustrate the market right now and debate what they say about the current moment in streaming. So today it's the latest front in the streaming wars. Who's up, down, and barely staying alive? From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany and this is The Town. This episode of The Town is presented by the Walt Disney Animation Studios Zootopia 2.

2:30Now nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. The Hollywood Reporter hails Zootopia 2 knocks it out of the park with this dazzling visuals, sophisticated humor, and genuine emotion. For your consideration for best animated feature.

2:49All right, we are here with Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg. Back once again after a week hiatus. We miss you, Lucas. Welcome back. You know, I had to be here for the first video episode. I know. I'm trying not to mute myself seven times during the course of the show. I can't wait to see the thumbnail. We are going to do a little game today. We are going to name our most interesting stats from the first kind of month or two of the year. And most of them are stuff that's coming out about the end of the year. Like we get bombarded with data in January from all the different services telling us what shows are doing well, what shows are not, what has set a record.

3:30um you know nielsen will inform us that it's a record for uh football once again because of their new metric that counts a whole bunch more people so i'm gonna name a couple of my most interesting most meaningful stats you will do the same and then we will discuss you understand the game uh i think so this is not a draft there are no winners or losers there are always winners that's true um okay so i'll go first i'm gonna start with a stat that just came out this week 552 million can i guess yes you know what that is right yes i think i did i just stepped on it but yes the quarterly loss at peacock sad trombone like what is how long can this go on that is up from a$372 million loss in the quarter of a year ago.

4:23The revenue's up, but they're just not making money on Peacock. This is the last of the wannabe general interest streamers that is still not profitable. How long can they support this? I think the annual losses were down or better than they had been, but the quarterly was up. and we know why the NBA deal kicked in correct they had initially said that this would be about the point that the service would be profitable and I think there are two reasons there's not one is it didn't grow maybe quite as much as they would have liked they're up to 44 million subs which is 8 million more than a year ago and they are showing growth on that side it's not like they're losing they had two quarters in a row of not growing, which is why the analyst response was actually not horrible because there was growth.

5:21It's just they had to spend a lot of money to get there, right? The NBA is incredibly expensive. And the way that they account for it, a lot of some of that NBA money is on Peacock's books. So its losses go up. And that's only going to increase as the years go on because the deal gets more expensive. So they need that to not only drive new subs, but they need it to become really powerful advertising. And, you know, I think it's a reasonable question whether it will be as effective as people think. There have been some really smart posts I've seen about how like the average NBA game on NBC is getting a smaller rating than the stuff that was on NBC before that oftentimes.

5:56You know, the NBA is a very popular sport, but its most popular moment is the playoffs and in particular the finals. And the marquee teams that can drive national viewership. Yeah, the regular season games are tough, right? I'm a huge basketball fan, But there's now national games on six, seven nights a week. Not all the best players play every day. Some of the best players in the league are hurt right now. So you're not going to get people to come every single night. Yeah, and that's a long-term play. They know that when you buy these big sports packages, you're buying it for the moments when there is a streak or playoffs or moments that drive ratings.

6:33And every random Tuesday isn't going to be that. Right. um but do you think so do you but if you're comcast if you're nbc universal and i don't know if this is where you're going like do they think that they have to do something dramatic or do they feel like they now have the pieces between nba olympics all this other stuff that they can go because the concern that i'd have i guess if i were them is it feels like from a programming perspective setting sports aside like they'll have a couple of huge hits a year and then sort of nothing in between and so there are nothing that pops and so they're not building that steady cadence and they've done these very smart or financially savvy movie deals where they start on peacock and then go to netflix and that should boost them in a year where universal picture is going to have a great year but we know that most of the viewership of of the odyssey and of minions and all and and mario 2 is going to be on netflix oh absolutely and i'm not sure how much that first window actually matters that much.

7:34I mean, I know it does for certain things, for the kids' stuff. My kid knows to go there for the big movies. And when they debut there, they do chart on Nielsen. So it does matter a little bit, but it's not an exclusive all the time arrangement like Disney, where you have to be continuously subscribed. If you want Moana, you got to watch Disney+. Right, exactly. And, you know, there's a trade-off there. They get a ton of money for selling these shows and movies to Netflix, but there is a trade-off. I mean, Brian Roberts, the CEO of Comcast, he said, this is one of his excuses. He says, I just think we came to this late because of our Hulu one-third ownership, which we have been able to monetize.

8:15Basically, blaming the fact that they got caught up in Hulu for a bunch of years and weren't able to focus on Peacock. And yes, they did get Disney to pay them billions of dollars for that stake. but I don't think that's an excuse anymore. You got to do something with Peacock. I think it would have been better, honestly, for both sides of Comcast that ended up with Hulu like five years ago. Because it would have allowed Disney to focus on Disney and it would have let Comcast have its own service. And I think it would be a more competitive and kind of straightforward marketplace. I forgot the other stat on Peacock though that really would concern me if I were them is their churn the last few months, according to Antenna, is way above everyone else.

9:00And I think some of this is cyclical, but they're in the like 8%, 9 % the last few months. The industry average is more like five or six. Netflix is down at one or two. That's what gets expensive is if you have a significant portion of your customer base canceling every month or two, and then you got to spend money to regain them only to see them cancel again. It's a very vicious cycle. Well, but isn't that why they're going all in on NBA and MLB to give those football fans on Peacock something else sports related the rest of the year so that they can prevent those people from signing up in September and canceling in January.

9:36Totally. It's just a question of how many people are going to not turn for those sports year round. You know, and to answer your previous question, I do think they have something up their sleeve. They've got to want to do something with Peacock, whether it's sitting around and waiting for maybe Netflix to get blocked by the government or Paramount to decide, Larry Ellison saying, I'm not doing this anymore. Or maybe the government says, great Netflix, you can buy Warner Brothers, but you have to divest HBO. It would be pretty hilarious if the government blocked the Netflix deal. And then there was another bidding war, but this time between Comcast and Paramount for Warner Brothers.

10:19Totally within the realm of possibility. Or they have to divest it and then they have to find a buyer and then they go up against each other, you know, Paramount and Comcast to get the divested HBO. Yeah. You know, we'll see. Donald Trump made some comments again at the Melania premiere about how one of these bidders may have some trouble, might be a monopoly here. I have a feeling I know which one he was talking about in that case. But all right, let's go on to the second big number from the past month or so that you would like to throw out. I would like to throw out the viewership of Stranger Things.

11:00Give me the number. Give me the number so I can get. Oh, you just blew it. Never mind. Sorry, I can start over. No, no, no. We're live. Do it. We're live. OK, the old season of Stranger Things. So I'll run through these Stranger Things season one, Netflix views, 56.6 million in the second half of last year. Stranger Things season two, 44.6 million. Stranger Things season four, 43 million. I can keep going. Keep in mind, these are bigger than new seasons of Emily in Paris. Nobody wants this hunting wise. Basically, a who's who of some of the biggest Netflix hits from the second half of last year, all smaller than people re-watching Stranger Things in anticipation.

11:44Or discovering it for the first time because it's been a while. Or discovering it for the first time because they're excited for the finale of the show, which is so much bigger than basically everything else on television. Yeah, my big number that I was going to throw out is 8.7 billion, which is the minutes viewed of Stranger Things in the final week of December, according to Nielsen. that is by far the biggest ever recorded. And it is so much bigger than any other show. It's kind of amazing how much Stranger Things has just pulled away. I forget, is your kid too young for Stranger Things? Yeah, he's not into it.

12:25He's not into it. And I'm too old. So that is not something that our household views. Do we think that... So I feel like any time one of these generation-defining shows ends. What used to always happen with HBO is The Sopranos is over. What's going to happen to HBO? Game of Thrones is over. True Blood is over. What's going to happen to HBO? Game of Thrones is over. What's going to happen to HBO? And Casey Bloys loves to trot that out because guess what? HBO has survived every single one. And I think we both feel like Netflix will probably be fine. Oh, yeah. They will, but... Okay, continue. Yeah, but this has to hurt, right?

13:03Because this is, it's their biggest hit by far. It's the only thing where if you were like, if someone were trying to buy Netflix and you're like, and we always say like, what's the valuable IP? Stranger Things is at the very top of the list. And they clearly used it strategically in Q4. They drop it around Thanksgiving. They drop it around Christmas. They drop it around New Year's. It's maximize viewership at the biggest moments and reduce churn by having it drop at the very end of a month. Yeah, the comps next year are going to be bad. Like they're probably already strategizing what they can put into December of next year.

13:36So the comps aren't horrible. But I mean, if you look at the numbers Nielsen just put out for the four top shows are all Stranger Things seasons. I mean, it's amazing. And like Landman is a big show, but it was about five times as big as Landman. And that's, it's just crazy. So you're got, I mean, until they can get the spinoffs going because you know the spinoffs are coming i think and they have duffer brothers shows coming this year but maybe they do have another but they're not stranger things spinoffs right and and i think that they would like a stranger things spinoff very soon to not just get that audience but to reignite the stranger things machine because my kid my kid will be in that age group very soon i'm sure he's going to discover it i'm sure he's going to want to watch it if there's an impetus coming like a new show he will probably do that well two of the three biggest shows in netflix history squid game and stranger things both ended in 2025 and the third wednesday like they got that third season out of jenna ortega but we know that that show's not going to live forever that's true um i know there are the all the seasons of stranger things are now in the 10 biggest single week streaming totals for nielsen the chart i'm looking at but also Wednesday is there two of them and then Tiger King and Ozark the Duffer Brothers show something very bad is going to happen is going to launch on March 26th on Netflix okay there we go but not it's not Stranger Things um all right anything else you would like to say about Stranger Things other than it's really effing big uh no do you think they'll successfully capitalize on this show like do you think spinoffs and the Stranger Things cinematic universe will be successful?

15:26That's my question. I do. Really? The loyalty there seems pretty strong. I don't watch the show so I don't know creatively what would work but I think that they could do it. Why not? I think it's really hard to follow stuff up like that. Things can be much, much smaller and maybe it'll be successful on a smaller scale. And the Duffers aren't going to be at the company. The Duffers are going to be at Paramount. How do we judge the Game of Thrones? They're fine. No, right. So like, but is that been successful for HBO? None of them are as big as Thrones, but they're all, they all do pretty well. Yeah.

16:04And it's that audience that signs up for it. I mean, they keep doing them. Yeah. So, you know, they wouldn't do them. They're very expensive. I think the nature of Stranger Things and what happens to the characters and them aging out of kind of the adolescence that made the show so fun. I think it's going to be really tough to get any of them to come back and do anything. But none of the Thrones spinoffs or most of them didn't involve actors. It just feels like Thrones is a whole world. It's a whole era that you can explore. Stranger Things is about a small town in Indiana and all the kids are old now.

16:41I don't know how you read that. You can do things that are thematically similar, but they're not going to be the same. It's kids fighting monsters with 80s references. Well, I have to imagine it's part of the reason why Netflix let these guys leave because they kind of realized they sucked all the juice they could out of them and then you let them go. Well, yeah, maybe they'll come back. They'll strategically use them to appear in different episodes of the spinoffs to like make some connection. I mean, I think that's my guess. They let them leave because they wanted to make movies for theaters and Netflix doesn't even be able to.

17:14Oh, you mean the Duffers? Yeah. Right, but I'm talking about the actors. All of them, except Millie Bobby Brown, are probably standing by their phones waiting for the call for the spinoffs. This episode is brought to you by TaxAct. Like an expert coach, TaxAct offers step-by-step guidance and guaranteed accuracy when filing taxes. Get tips along the way, add expert assist to talk to tax experts, and let our experts do your taxes for you with expert full service. TaxAct helps you find the deductions and credits you deserve so you can get them over with. Visit TaxAct.com to learn more, conditions apply.

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18:08All right, let's give us another number here i'm gonna stick with massive uh netflix numbers uh 20.5 or i guess it's like 20 billion but 20 20 20 000 million minutes that's 20 billion yeah no i guess it's 20 billion i said it don't don't question the math um 20 billion 20.5 billion minutes viewed for k-pop demon hunters more than twice as big as any other movie on streaming last year oh my god are we gonna do Is Netflix movies back? Are we... Not back. Have they arrived? We're going to do the... Is this proof that Netflix movies can be a cultural moment? Or is this just a one-off thing? What do you mean?

18:51What do you say? Yes, you've been... Wait, can both be true? Can both be true? Yes, this is proof that a Netflix movie can be a cultural phenomenon. Do they have anything else that qualifies? No. Is the rip a cultural phenomenon? No. Will it put up pretty huge numbers? Yes. Craig watched it. Can Craig remember anything that happened in the second half of the movie? No. How dare you? Yes, I can. That's just the way we are. Okay. I mean, are you going to disagree?

19:27I guess I feel like I often forget what happens in movies. That you see in theaters? That I see in theaters, right? Do you want me to tell you exactly what happened in what Train Dreams I saw at home? It was a Netflix movie. But do you want me to tell you beat for beat what happens in One Battle or Sinners, which I saw months ago? You understand what I'm saying. These movies roll in, roll out, and they do not catch the zeitgeist the same way that a theatrical hit catches the zeitgeist. It's still true. have you been pondering Marty Supreme since you saw it in theaters I remember what happened Craig saw it twice don't dox me I'm sorry I did but what's the issue here what is your big thing about K-pop demon hunters yes it's a huge hit like it's their biggest thing ever but it also follows the formula of streaming movies that become phenomena.

20:35They are kids' movies. They are animated. They have catchy music. Well, that's just not streaming movies. Yeah, well... What were the phenomena in theaters from last year? Minecraft? Yeah, but there's no music in Minecraft or Zootopia. I guess Jack Black had a little musical moment. But not... I mean, there's really nothing. It's not the same. But on streaming, you look at the numbers, Moana and Kanto, you know all of these musical animated hits are the ones that have the most resonance and now Netflix has their own Despicable Me franchise but it's comedy the biggest takeaway from K-pop Demon Hunters to me is that this hasn't happened before for Netflix it took this long and it took an outside studio they once had ambitions of making six animated movies a year yeah they have a whole Skydance deal that has delivered them they were going to make them all in house and I remember getting a tour and having the different animators talk to me about what was going to happen and none of them really popped Leo, Leo is the only one with Adam Sandler and that's because it's Adam Sandler and they can put that on the tile there were a couple of others that are right but yeah not at the level that we hope Yeah, so I guess the takeaway for me is good for Netflix, not waiting for a repeat performance this year.

22:07What do you think is the biggest show that's not on Netflix? Oh, that's a good one. well, Luminate says it's Love Island and that was going to be one of my numbers is the 18.4 billion minutes for Love Island on Peacock, which Luminate claimed was the biggest show of the year. I beg to differ on that one. I think probably Landman, right? Nielsen says it's like a tie between Landman and Reacher. Okay. I was very... Reacher on Prime Video, Landman on Paramount+. I was very suspicious of that Love Island illuminate number yeah just because the universe is so much smaller 44 million subs on peacock and there's you know double that on netflix in the u.s the biggest reason would be because i think there are a lot of episodes in the season of love island but you see those stranger things numbers and you're trying to tell me that love island was bigger than stranger things that i just don't believe it you want to say it's bigger than land man or reacher because of tonnage fine um but certainly not on a per episode basis yeah um do you do you have an opinion between landman and reacher um i think landman's bigger in the u.s reacher is bigger globally both because it's it's more like landman is such a u.s specific show and amazon is so much bigger outside the u.s um that'd be my answer yeah paramount claims that the taylor sheridan stuff does travel but i'm sure it does fine in certain territories but if you're trying to tell me that like a bunch of people in India, Japan, Korea, wherever are watching Landman.

23:45Now we're going to get emails from those people saying they actually do. Reacher is like the type of movie show, whatever, that has always traveled well. It's true. Honestly, not that different from The Rift. It's an action movie that's fun and easy to watch and you can kind of turn your brain off a little bit. Yeah. Okay. So the biggest, if you were going to get one show for the year and Stranger Things was off the table and you are starting your own Netflix or competitor. Yeah. Which show do you take?

24:22Honestly, I might take Love Island. I was going to say because it's because it's there because of how many episodes you can. And it's replicable. Yeah. Like Landman will go four or five seasons and then it'll be done. Love Island is going to be with us for decades. Right. We would both take Taylor Sheridan over the creator of Love Island. I mean, the other one that is up there with Love Island is Love is Blind. All those dating shows. Oh, yeah. I know. Love is Blind is a good one. I might take that. And they don't cost as much. Right. Well, they all have local spinoffs, too. Yes. You can hang out with Nick Lachey.

25:01Love Island, Timbuktu, wherever it goes. I know you're a big 98 Degrees fan, so you need to get your Nick Lachey time in. I do enjoy 98 Degrees. Thank you. So give me your last number here. Are you surprised that Netflix's share of original hits is going down? No. Are you surprised that Bluey is the most watched show on television? No. Are you surprised that Grey's Anatomy is the most watched non-kid show on television? no because it's on multiple platforms including netflix okay like disney puts out numbers saying graze is the huge show for for hulu and great it is but it's also boosted by netflix i mean this happens all the time i was i asked luminate the other day why this 10 year old mini series based on a stephen king book called 11 22 63 about the jfk which was originally a hulu show right and it's still on Hulu and it popped up on Luminate as one of the top 10 shows last week on Hulu and I asked him I'm like what the hell why is this popping and they're like oh well it was recently added to Netflix as well I'm like oh that would have been a good thing to know because that's why it's charting yeah I did I had a fun chart in my newsletter that showed it was like Parks and Rec and The Office and what happened when they were on Netflix versus off and if they're on Netflix they were in the top 10 acquired shows on Nielsen every single week And if they were off Netflix, they were never there.

26:30Yeah. I mean, it's amazing. The interesting thing is, let's say Peacock goes out of business or whatever, and The Office goes back to Netflix. Do you think The Office would be as big on Netflix today as it was five years ago? I'm not sure because I think the phenomenon on Netflix that seems to be happening is that they put these shows on. Everyone thinks they're new to them on Netflix. they watch the crap out of them and then they're done. And Netflix is very smart about the windowing where they get all these shows. Put it on and off. Yeah, they did it with Animal Kingdom recently. They did it with Your Honor, the Bryan Cranston show.

27:09These were moderate hits on other services. They go to Netflix, they become huge. And then it's like everyone's this ravenous tiger that eats it up and then they spit it out and they're done with it. I think it depends on the show. I think there are some that come and go, but NCIS Grey's Anatomy the animated shows like Bob's Burgers Family Guy Spongebob Nielsen's Dreaming Star of the Year did you see that? they gave him an award those shows never leave the top 10 so I feel like The Office would probably still do can you name the most because you shat all over K-Pop Can you name the most watched non-kids movie from last year on streaming?

27:55Happy Gilmore 2. It is. That was it. Can you name the second most watched? Because this one I don't think you'll get. Unless you memorize the top ten. I know it's Netflix. I don't know. It's not Netflix. Back in action, the Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx movie is number three. The number two movie was Wicked. Oh, that's a good one. And that's on Amazon, right? Peacock and Amazon. yeah those movies those Universal movies will be on Netflix soon but that was under the old Amazon and guess what that one has music that people like I'm gonna guess that Wicked 2 will not be as popular in streaming as Wicked 1 maybe not it was a weird thing this year because Wicked 2 was coming out in theaters and NBC Universal was not able to promote the Peacock release of the original because it was on Amazon yeah well but they'll take the checks.

28:51Yeah, they will. That's true. So where do we land on this? Does any of this change our streaming hierarchy, our rankings, like Netflix still running away with everything, like Amazon doing its thing? Like what does the latest data do to change our perception of the streamers? Well, it feels like there's a lot of parody after Netflix when it comes to hits, which is kind of surprising when we think of the tiers, it feels like, okay, Netflix is kind of in a tier of its own. And then it's Amazon and the larger like Disney package. And then you've got Peacock, Paramount Plus and HBO Max next. And then like we're going to ignore the Tubis and Rokus and YouTubes because they're just kind of slightly different.

29:37But Paramount Plus and Peacock have as many and HBO gets treated differently because some of its shows don't count as streaming originals. But like they have as many hits as Amazon and Disney, right? Right. Like Disney's strength lies elsewhere. Same with Amazon, not as much in the like big hit new shows. So I guess that would be that. And the fact that none of the biggest new shows of last year were new were the things that stood out. Yeah, that's an interesting stat that you highlighted that there was no new hit last year in the top 10. Yeah, nothing. And every year before that, there'd been anywhere from like one to five of the top 10 shows were all all new ones.

30:15is that just a sign of maturity in streaming or is it is it a creative issue both i mean historically in television you wouldn't have like new hits all the time right but they're pretty steady i don't know it's i think it's concerning yeah well i guess people would blame like what uh strikes and cutbacks and all of that but yeah i think it's and people falling back into like what's comfortable. You had a lot of big new shows or a lot of big returning shows last year. Stranger Things, Good Game, Wednesday, Reacher. Landman. Yeah. And maybe it also is Stranger Things is a little bit of the exception to this, but I think some of these streaming services now want to be really sure that they get new seasons of their biggest shows like just about every year.