Streaming is still trying to be TikTok

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.”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 in their mobile apps. A great scene can help a subscriber pick a show. A steady stream of clips could also get them to open the app when they only have a minute to spare. The bet is that both will make the subscription feel more worth paying for. But so far, the streamers have shared little about whether these feeds have succeeded in giving people another reason to stay subscribed.On YouTube, a few clips can be the whole visit. YouTube accounted for a record 15.8 percent of viewing through US TV sets in August, according to Nielsen. YouTube also leads in time spent watching video on phones, where it competes with TikTok and Instagram, says Ross Benes, a senior analyst at eMarketer. The firm estimates that US adults spend a little over an hour and a half a day watching video on mobile devices and about two and a half hours on connected TVs. It counts simultaneous phone and TV viewing in both totals.The streamers have plenty of shows to clip, but they’re up against social apps with millions of people making something new reacting to that existing content every day. A scene in a streaming app is a pitch for the full episode. On TikTok or YouTube, a creator’s reaction to that same episode can be the reason you open the app in the first place. There’s something to come back for, even when the show is between seasons.About 43 percent of Disney Plus mobile users had interacted with Verts by October, Disney said. The feed launched in March and lets viewers swipe through scenes, save titles, or jump straight into a movie or show. Disney didn’t say whether Verts gets people to watch more movies and shows or stay subscribed longer. Verts accounted for 65 percent of user-initiated short-form video starts in the ESPN app. A highlight from last night’s game gives fans something to watch even if they have no plans to sit through a full game.On Disney Plus, the company is turning to fan-made videos in a more direct bid to compete with social video. In August, Disney announced a US pilot with TikTok to bring clips about its movies and shows into Verts. The feed will feature a curated selection from creators who opt in, and the clips will appear on both apps. On Disney’s August earnings call, CEO Josh D’Amaro said the deal could make Disney Plus a “stickier app” where people stay longer and discover more, which “benefits our whole ecosystem.” An internal roadmap reviewed by Business Insider targets early 2027 for adding creator content and calls for sports and news clips and short-form series such as microdramas.Disney has shown that people will use a clips feed inside a streaming app. The next question is whether the feed becomes a reason to open the app in the first place, and another reason to keep paying for it.Paramount is looking beyond its own catalog, too. After adding a clips feed to Paramount Plus in April, it was exploring user-generated video for a possible free tier by September. On Paramount’s May earnings call, Ellison said viewers were going from clips to news, sports, and entertainment, without saying how often.HBO Max began testing Shorts with select US iPhone users in July, letting viewers jump straight from a clip into a movie or show. Skydance’s third-quarter results excluded HBO Max because the quarter ended six days before the Warner Bros. Discovery deal closed. The company gave no usage figures for either feed on its November call.At Netflix, Jefferies estimates that average monthly viewing fell from 66 hours per member in the first half of 2023 to 49 in the first half of 2026. On Netflix’s October earnings call, co-CEO Greg Peters pointed to lower cancellation rates in the US and globally as evidence that engagement remained healthy.On the same call, co-CEO Ted Sarandos downplayed the role of short-form video six months after Netflix made Clips a centerpiece of its mobile redesign. He grouped short-form video with other early experiments and said Netflix’s core entertainment business still accounted for roughly 95 percent of spending and nearly all revenue. Netflix plans to roll out themed Clips feeds in 2027, but it hasn’t said whether Clips gets people to watch more.Making money from the feed itself is harder. Benes says ads on phones generally fetch less than ads on TVs, and a short clip has less room for ad breaks than a movie or an episode. “I just don’t see it being like a big success for them,” he says. He sees a more plausible role for these feeds as something to scroll through on your phone while the TV is on.Streamers may end up borrowing something useful from TikTok: a better way to browse. Their business still depends on what people settle in to watch.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Rani Molla