Streamers Will Spend More on Content Than Broadcasters in 2025 for the First Time Ever
As streamers raise prices on us, it is a (slight) comfort to know that their bills are going up as well.
In 2025, streaming services will finally out-spend commercial broadcasters on content. Ampere Analysis forecasts global content spend by streamers will reach a combined $95 billion this year, or about 39 percent of the total global investment on content. Broadcasters account for just 37 percent of the total spending.
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But why is this the year? Well, some year (soon) had to be the year, and ’24 saw an awful lot of streaming-subscriber growth thanks to password-sharing crackdowns. With more eyeballs online than on broadcast and cable television, studios have shifted their budgets to streaming.
Streaming platforms are savvy, Ampere opined, and “are expected to ensure investment grows at a slower pace than revenue to maintain attractive profit margins.” It’s kind of the only way Peacock or Paramount+ will turn a profit, we imagine.
The London-based researcher predicts just a 0.4 percent increase in global content spend from 2024 to 2025, reaching a total of $248 billion this year (up marginally from $247 billion). For comparison, content investment grew 2 percent from 2023 ($243 billion) to 2024 thanks to the Summer Olympics, the resolution of the 2023 Hollywood strikes, and ad spend on the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election.
Below is a look at the last five years of global content spend. You’ll have to forgive 2021, we were still coming out of the COVID crisis.
Here is that same five-year period broken down by company type:
Commercial broadcasters meanwhile have become more and more reliant on one-off events, like an election or the Olympics. Otherwise, as advertising revenue declines alongside linear viewing, less money in means less money out. It is worth noting here however that this is a particularly American problem.
“Outside the U.S., commercial broadcasters continue to demonstrate resilience, maintaining their content investment throughout 2025,” the Ampere study found.
“In 2025, expenditure by VOD services will increase by 6 percent, making these companies the leading contributors to the content landscape, surpassing commercial broadcasters for the first time,” Peter Ingram, the research manager at Ampere Analysis said. “The continued growth of VOD spend, combined with the more cautious outlook of linear broadcasters, highlights the shifting role of traditional television as viewer demand turns to digital platforms and streaming.”
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