Over the past few years, Netflix co-C.E.O. Ted Sarandos, who isn’t exactly known for keeping his thoughts to himself, has hammered on one talking point above all others: TV is Netflix, and Netflix is TV. And that’s certainly become more and more true with each passing year. The company’s latest move, which fellow co-C.E.O. Greg Peters touted as a “first of its kind partnership,” will offer live television content from France’s TF1 free-to-air linear channels to Netflix subscribers in the country for no additional fee. For Netflix, which reported more than 10 million French customers in 2022, but hasn’t disclosed country-level growth since, this is a meaningful engagement play for existing subscribers and a customer-acquisition tool for new ones in a market where linear TV still accounted for 60 percent of all viewing in 2024, per Dataaxis. This new deal will be especially transformative for Netflix’s sports business in the country. The streamer currently offers weekly WWE matches and two NFL games each year to subscribers in France, where interest in both leagues is growing at a gingerly pace. Now, however, Netflix will also become home to the French national team soccer matches, French men’s and women’s International Basketball Federation games, the UEFA Women’s Euro 2025, and the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup—all available to stream through its partnership with TF1. In France at least, Netflix really is about to become TV. Netflix’s deal also comes at a time when cord-cutters in the U.S. are growing impatient with v.M.V.P.D.s like YouTube TV, Fubo, Hulu+Live TV, and Sling. A subscription to a major v.M.V.P.D. in the U.S. costs an average of $70 per month, up roughly 30 percent from 2021. But the offerings for sports fans, who represent the largest cohort of subscribers, are only getting thinner. Sure, accessing the four major sports networks (ESPN, CBS, NBC, and Fox) through a v.M.V.P.D. is likely cheaper than signing up for multiple streaming services—and it’s certainly cheaper than a traditional cable package, particularly one that includes an R.S.N. on a premium tier. But more and more local sports are partnering with over-the-air broadcasters, or launching their own independent streaming services, and v.M.V.P.D. executives have shown middling interest in offering, say, Victory+, a service that carries Dallas Stars games (among other teams) for free. If customers no longer see the benefit in paying an increasingly exorbitant monthly fee for access to less sports content, the big streamers have a chance to fill the void and become more efficient centralized hubs. Indeed, the TF1 deal seems like the start of a new paradigm for Netflix—partnering with broadcasters in regions where there’s room for streaming engagement to increase and where complementary programming can be offered as a perk, thus further cementing Netflix as the first option, every time. There’s also the boost in advertising revenue, decreased churn, and all that extra audience data to help refine programming strategy.

Peters and Sarandos aren’t the only ones who want to become TV. Amazon, Google, and Roku (to some extent) are all pursuing the same goal through an alternative strategy: offering other services, often niche, on their platforms in exchange for a share of advertising and sub revenue. Amazon has shifted its marketing strategy away from Prime Video originals toward trying to become the home of all TV. Meanwhile, YouTube C.E.O. Neal Mohan has started talking more publicly about ambitions in the subscription space with add-ons to YouTube and YouTube TV. Sunday Ticket, which costs Google $2 billion a year, is available through YouTube Primetime Channels as a way to encourage more signups. Even if the path is slightly different from Netflix’s seemingly replicable playbook of partnering with foreign linear services, the goal is the same: to become the aggregator before becoming the aggregated. This is all happening at a particularly fraught time. Free streaming is capturing a larger share of attention, while paid services have seen shrinkage: Netflix’s share of total time spent watching TV has fallen by a percentage point year to date, and Prime Video, Paramount+, and HBO Max have all remained stagnant, per Nielsen’s Gauge Report. In the meantime, v.M.V.P.D.s are shedding customers at a far higher rate than at this time last year. More than 1 million customers dropped their TV lite subscriptions in Q1, up more than 50 percent from the year prior, according to new analysis from research firm MoffettNathanson. Even more concerning is the safety net conversion rate: Of those who canceled their traditional pay TV cable packages, only 13 percent then signed up for a virtual option, down from 28.3 percent last year. On the flip side, an industry in need of reinvention is more up for grabs than ever.

Thanks, Julia! See you Thursday. John