Streaming Year in Review 2026

Two stories dominated streaming media in 2025: Netflix versus the rest and YouTube takes TV. YouTube may be the bigger story.

Streamticker: The Biggest Streaming Mergers and Acquisitions of 2025

Here is a month-by-month roundup of the streaming industry's most momentous mergers and acquisitions of 2025 (excluding the competing Paramount Skydance and Netflix bids for Warner Bros. Discovery—a drama that just turned definitively in Paramount's favour at press time).

The State of Streaming Codecs 2026

Streaming codec adoption used to be an engineering abstraction governed by RD curves, BD-rate tables, and roadmap slides that no one outside of R&D ever considered. Over the last 15 months, codec adoption decisions have morphed into a much broader discussion, involving C-level execs from finance and legal. While the precursors to this transition occurred pre-2025, the situation coalesced in 2025. During the same period, we saw one codec step to the front (AV1) and another shrink before our eyes (VVC).

The State of Media & Entertainment Streaming 2026

In last year's The State of Media & Entertainment Streaming, I wrote about the likelihood of studios and platforms with fewer subscribers than the big three (Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and Disney) having to collaborate or merge to reduce the costs of content creation and acquisition while growing their userbases in 2025. As predicted last year, some of this movement has begun to happen, but not necessarily with the smaller players.

The State of Streaming Sustainability 2026

Is it still fashionable to be sustainable, even with AI?

The State of Streaming Monetisation 2026

How are streaming content companies doing? Publishers, creators, and aggregators have traditionally made the majority of their revenue on subscriptions, so why does everyone want to talk about advertising? Ad-supported content is more affordable. Because most streaming consumers have maxed out their subscriptions, leaving the SVOD market saturated, advertising is more likely to be the dominant incremental revenue driver for streaming over the next several years, based on how media companies are talking about themselves and guiding investors.

The State of Shoppable Live TV 2026

In 2025, shoppable live content began to come of age in Europe. Having already achieved massive success in Asia over the last few years, the concept had struggled to gain a foothold in Europe as a viable option for retailers and brands. This changed in 2025, as major platforms and brands began to put significant resources behind the shoppable live concept.

How to Fight Sports Streaming Fragmentation Fatigue

The fragmentation of sports streaming rights and the proliferation of channels with some matches but not others makes it increasingly difficult for fans to track their teams' upcoming games. Free Live Sports President Cathy Rasenberger, Play Anywhere CSO Pete Scott, Hub Entertainment Research Principal Jon Giegengack, and MTech Sport's Matt Stagg discuss ongoing discoverability challenges and how Free Live Sports, Roku with its Sports Zones, Fox One, the ESPN app, and others are trying to create new sports destinations to counteract sports streaming's disaggregation crisis.

Sports Leagues and Broadcasters Must Tailor Engagement Strategies for Gen Z

Free Live Sports president Cathy Rasenberger argues that sports leagues and broadcasters need to adapt to the ways Gen Z viewers consume content—short-form, social, athlete-centric storylines—if they want to engage and retain younger audiences in this discussion with MTech Sport, Media & Entertainment consultant Matt Stagg, Play Anywhere CSO Pete Scott, and Hub Entertainment Research principal Jon Giegengack from Streaming Media Connect 2025.

Agentic AI: A New Path to Efficiency and ROI

By this time next year, agentic AI will sit inside everyday operations no longer as an experiment, but as part of the connected backbone that powers how content is created, managed, and delivered. The question has shifted from if to how, and specifically, how to make it usable across the whole business.

Review: Media Excel HERO 6000

This review will highlight Media Excel's HERO 6000 and walk readers through the process of configuring streaming using the HERO platform. You'll learn how to deliver live streams, create encoding presets, add audio presets, create channels, and add outputs for playback. The article will also cover how to add roles and play streams.

How to Leverage AI in Streaming Ad Tech in 2026

Whether it's traditional machine learning (ML) or its trendier generative cousin, artificial intelligence (AI) is appearing in a range of streaming ad tech use cases for increasing under-the-hood efficiency in streaming monetisation applications. Sargeway's Sarge Sargent, Fox's Amit Shetty, Google's Inderpreet Sandhu, IAB Tech Lab's Shailley Singh, and Reality Software's Nadine Krefetz discuss AI's fast-changing role in this clip from Streaming Media 2025.

Introducing the 2025 Streaming Media European Innovation Awards Winners

The polls have closed, and the results are in! After an energetic voting period, we're excited to reveal the winners of the 2025 Streaming Media European Innovation Awards. Now in its 17th year, this year's programme attracted more than 1,200 participants who cast 8,000-plus votes votes across 13 distinct categories.

The 2025 Streaming Media Europe 51

Welcome to the 2025 edition of the Streaming Media Europe 51, making its much-awaited return after a pause in 2024. This marks the 11th iteration of this list and the second time we've streamlined the selection to just 51 standout companies—moving away from the more expansive Europe 101 format of the past to focus on the most innovative, impactful, and forward-thinking technology providers in the streaming ecosystem.

Divvying Up the Growing Digital Ad Spend

This article will look at the state of CTV and streaming advertising and monetisation in the UK and EU, how the ad spend pie is divvied up, where CTV stands in relation to traditional broadcast, how the markets are trending, and what accounts for current growth patterns.

Leveraging AI in OTT and CTV Content Discovery

In this article, several experts from key EU streaming vendors weigh in on both the benefits and drawbacks of leveraging AI in OTT and CTV content discovery. They also speculate on how it will impact the future of personalisation.

The Future of Live Sport: Get Some Skin in the Game

All fans don't want the same experience. They don't consume sport content in the same places, with the same purpose, or with the same expectations. And yet, the industry still builds around the default—the single, editorially led, one-size-fits-all feed. It's time we treated live sport like what it really is: a base layer with infinite skinning potential. That's the model that drives engagement in every other digital format. And if broadcasting wants to stay culturally relevant, that same logic needs to be applied—fast.

The Multiview Imperative: How Technical Architecture Determines Streaming Success

The largely unsung hero in YouTube's growth may be a feature that cost the company 99% less to implement than Sunday Ticket: multiview streaming capability. As this article shows, if you're broadcasting sports, multiview--particularly Build Your Own Multiview (BYOMV)--is quickly becoming an expected feature among sophisticated viewers. It's also one of the most affordable and effective ways to amplify the value of your programming, particularly when your content isn't exclusive and faces direct competition in the same market.

Review: YoloLiv YoloBox Extreme

YoloBox, an Android-based tablet with live production software and hardware-based connectivity, marries the capabilities of software, the I/O of hardware, and the portability of a tablet. The all-in-one tablet-based streaming solution market also has entries from Magewell (Director and Director One) and Cinetreak. YoloLiv is not only the pioneer in this segment; it also offers the most diverse solutions, from the single-input Mini to the new device I'll be looking at here, the eight-input Extreme.

With live sport streaming, control the platform, control the game

Streaming platforms, tech giants, and traditional broadcasters are all fighting to become the destination for live sport viewers. And in the middle of it all are the fans, facing rising costs, fractured access, and a growing sense of fatigue. The rights war has become a platform war. And no one's sitting on the sidelines.