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The Great Streaming Money Squeeze

As Hollywood retrenches from its cash-burning, everything-at-the-wall, win-at-all-costs era, streaming guru Matthew Ball weighs in on the industry’s shrinking margins, a new Netflix competitor, and why gaming is merging with traditional entertainment.

Netflix co-C.E.O. Ted Sarandos. Few in Hollywood known how the transition to streaming will play out, or which business model will prove to be the right one.
Netflix co-C.E.O. Ted Sarandos. Few in Hollywood known how the transition to streaming will play out, or which business model will prove to be the right one. Photo: JC Olivera/Getty Images
Julia Alexander
April 4, 2023

Perhaps the best part of analyzing (and consulting on) Hollywood’s decade-plus transition to streaming is that few people really know how it’s going to play out, or which business model will prove to be the right one in the end. Netflix, the original pure-play streamer, has jumped into advertising and live TV. Warner Bros. pivoted from debuting movies in theaters to dumping them onto streaming and back again. Disney, which has an option to buy out Hulu from Comcast, can’t seem to decide whether to keep it or sell. Studio veterans have adapted the industry jargon of “LTV” and “churn” while ex-tech executives have enrolled in a crash course on the high-touch art of talent management.