☀️NETFLIX vs. YOUTUBE: How The 2025 💰 Stacks Up
Record U.K. '25 🎥 production spend / New sports leagues ratings slumps / SIRIUSXM subs, revenue ⬇️ in '25
Mornin! This is Sean McNulty (connect with me on LINKEDIN here if ya like or email me at seanmcnultynyc@gmail.com), and here’s the Hollywood + Media news to know on Thursday, February 5, 2026.
Where clearly AI has also ingested all of the chapters from The Great Streaming Wars of the 2010s, given ANTHROPIC’s new Super Bowl-driven ad campaign.
Yes, ANTHROPIC is using the old chestnut that, and stop me if this sounds familiar, our competitors have ads — cough-CHATGPT-cough — and don’t ads suck? Everything will be cheap and ad-free forever over here!
Ah, that brings me back to our golden streaming video life outlook in 2015 😂 . . . so, I’ll see ya on the ANTHROPIC ad tier in 2030. Keep on keepin’ it real, AI.
BTW: Enjoy this new Q4 2025 chart from NIELSEN.
YEAH: Trump seems tired of having NETFLIX and PSKY on his call sheet, telling Tom Llamas in his NBC Super Bowl interview his new, uh, take on the NETFLIX BROS. deal: “I’ve been called by both sides. It’s the two sides, but I’ve decided I shouldn’t be involved. The Justice Department will.”
Although don’t you worry, he’ll be cheering from the sidelines (for I’m gonna guess about a week), also nodding to, in the end, his true love of just watching a good fight: “They are beating the hell out of each other, and there will be a winner.”
But wait — what about all of the great NETFLIX BROS. deal points concerns that U.S. Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley brought up this week around CNN (which NETFLIX is not buying) and the non-existent trove of transgender kids programming on NETFLIX?
FWIW: David Ellison posted an open letter to the U.K. creative community today to further make his case for a WARNAMOUNT deal, including:
30 “high-quality feature films per year” (15 from each company) with 45-day windows.
An “independent” HBO.
GOOD NEWS: We can close another time loop — you can now buy physical copies of books on SPOTIFY. Great progress on getting us back to 1995, everyone!
OH: More newsroom cuts at a major ‘newspaper’ — the online-only Atlanta Journal-Constitution cut 15% of its staff, or about 50 folks, half of which were in the newsroom.
PLUS: AMAZON is launching a 2-month AI beta test starting in March to evaluate new AI tools that speed up pre- and post-production processes for TV and film, according to Reuters.
NEW POD
YOUTUBE ad revenue keeps growing in Q4, as NETFLIX duel intensifies
YT’s global advertising revenue continued its upward ways in Q4, hitting $11.4B (+8.6% YoY), although that was below analysts’ expectations.
As always — zero insight into specific YT MUSIC/PREMIUM or YT TV subscription revenues, or how much of that ad revenue is from the U.S.
But more importantly, let’s take a look at what really matters around town . . .
YOUTUBE VS. NETFLIX 🥊
While there are a few folks in the upper echelons fighting for leadership in the next era of the entertainment business — these two get the most head-to-head fascination, and rightfully so.
Thankfully, YOUTUBE gave us a little more data than usual in Q4, from which I can break out additional insights into:
Advertising revenue trends
Comps between YOUTUBE and NETFLIX
How other Hollywood studios stack up to YOUTUBE, and much more
So, let’s dive in to get a better handle on the scope of GOOGLE’s YOUTUBE biz in the context of greater HOLLYWOOD.