Legacy platforms, including Netflix, HBO Max, Paramount Plus, and Disney Plus, have deployed vertical scrollable feeds to direct mobile app users toward their full-length programming. These companies are now evolving the feature beyond typical show excerpts by experimenting with creator-generated content, news, and microdramas. According to Skydance CEO David Ellison, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery combined still trail YouTube in total U.S. television watch time across all their properties. Despite early user adoption on some apps, streaming executives have yet to provide hard evidence that short-form features actually reduce churn.
Key points
Streamers are embracing social-style vertical video feeds to recapture engagement lost to…: Streamers are embracing social-style vertical video feeds to recapture engagement lost to major social networks.
Platforms are actively testing user-generated clips, sports, and creator partnerships to…: Platforms are actively testing user-generated clips, sports, and creator partnerships to populate their mobile interfaces through 2027.
Entertainment companies have not yet demonstrated that short-form feeds drive full-length…: Entertainment companies have not yet demonstrated that short-form feeds drive full-length viewership or lower subscriber cancellation rates.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
At Skydance’s first employee town hall after it acquired Warner Bros. Discovery in October, CEO David Ellison told staff that the company behind Paramount Plus and HBO Max was competing for people’s attention with some of the world’s biggest tech companies. Months earlier, he’d singled out a way to get viewers to spend more time with Paramount’s programming. A feed of short vertical videos, he said, was “critical to our future.”
Streaming is still trying to be TikTok
It hasn’t proven that short-form video will help.
It hasn’t proven that short-form video will help.
On Skydance’s earnings call Monday, Ellison put a name to the competition. Add up all of Paramount’s and Warner Bros. Discovery’s broadcast, cable, and streaming properties, he said, and they still trail YouTube in US television watch time, according to Nielsen. Ellison said Paramount Plus engagement had risen more than 20 percent since Skydance acquired Paramount last year. He didn’t mention how the clips feed panned out.
Over the past year, Disney Plus, Paramount Plus, Netflix, and HBO Max have introduced swipeable feeds of short videos…
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