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The 2023 TV landscape became the year of AVOD.
Netflix and Disney+ completed their first full years with advertising tiers in 2023, and streamers like Prime Video and AMC+ also announced their AVOD entrances. However, the year was also marked by consolidation and rebranding, which are trends that will likely continue in 2024 and beyond.
As part of Adweek’s year-in-review coverage, we took a deep dive into the major streaming services, how they compare at the end of a transformative year and what 2024 might bring.
Here are the biggest takeaways from the state of streaming heading into the new year:
Netflix’s big numbers
Netflix had an unexpectedly great year.
The world’s biggest streaming service initially struggled in 2022, losing subscribers for the first time since 2011, missing projected net adds and announcing it would debut an advertising tier after years of refusal.
But it quickly got back on track.
In 2023, Netflix ended the year by adding nearly 9 million subscribers in the third quarter, bringing its total to more than 247 million paying subscribers. For comparison, the streamer finished with 223.09 million in 2022.
Much of that growth came from its password crackdown. Paid sharing led to fewer cancellations than expected, which let the streamer raise prices once again.
The ad-supported tier is also rapidly scaling up, with almost 70% quarter-over-quarter growth and 30% of all new sign-ups in countries with ad-supported tiers going towards that plan.
In August, Netflix closed its first-ever TV upfront, announcing it had doubled its monthly active ad tier users globally to more than 10 million at the time. By November, that number had climbed to 15 million.
Inside the House of Mouse
Disney’s flagship streamer, Disney+, now reaches 150.2 million subscribers globally, down 14 million from the 164.2 million it ended with in 2022. However, most of that loss came from India-based Disney+ Hotstar after a strategy shift to move away from low-margin subscribers.
