The Streaming Scene: Disney+ enters its cancel era, plus Netflix spends $18 billion

Summary

Disney+ scraps long-form animation likely due to Moana’s success
Netflix plans to spend $18 billion on content in 2025
The Traitors wraps up its best season with compelling reality TV drama

When it comes to the latest and greatest on streaming, we’re pretty passionate here at Pocket-lint. From the best movies to TV shows we can’t stop obsessing over, there is a lot of entertainment to love in the streaming era. However, it can be tough to stay up to date with your favorite media, especially with rising pricesand a constantly-shifting constellation of apps and services to keep track of.

Enter “The Streaming Scene.”

This brand-new weekly column aims to give you a single place to read more about not only the latest and greatest content on streaming, but also keep you up to date on the latest discounts and deals to help you stream for less. This is the first edition, but look forward to this column every Thursday, and as part of our newly launched streaming newsletter on Fridays.

So without further ado, let’s talk streaming!

YouTube thinks it needs to be like Netflix to get its users to spend more money

YouTube’s upcoming TV app update will reportedly showcase paid shows from other streaming services on its homepage.

Disney+ axes all long-form animation

You can blame the success of Moana 2 for this one

Disney+

Earlier this week The Hollywood Reporter reported that that Disney has scrapped all plans for a Tiana, a Disney+ animated series, which was set to follow the titular character after the events of 2009’s The Princess and the Frog. And unfortunately, this cancelation is part of a broader strategy shift by Walt Disney Animation away from animated long-form content created exclusively for Disney+.

Though I’m personally sad to see the Tiana project scrapped as I’m a huge fan of Princess and the Frog (especially as a hand-drawn animation enthusiast), this move away from content created specifically for Disney+ does make sense, especially in the wake of Moana 2, which was originally conceived as a Disney+ series but was converted into a theatrically-released movie that went on to gross over a billion dollars worldwide. Hopefully, something similar happens with Tiana, as I’d love to see what this project could have been, either as a theatrically-released film, a series of shorts, or something else.

Disney+ subscriber numbers sink following price hikes

Disney+ lost a substantial amount of subscribers in the final months of 2024, however it’s not all bad news for the Mouse House.

Netflix is spending 18 billion on content this year

And they said they’re ready to spend more

freestocks / Pocket-lint

During this week’s Morgan Stanley Tech, Media & Telecom Conference, Netflix CFO Spencer Neumann made the shocking revelation that the streamer was expecting to budget an eye-watering $18 billion in 2025 for new content, adding that Netflix was actually planning to spend more in the future and this number was “not anywhere near a ceiling.”

In case you were wondering, this $18 billion content budget for this year is up around 11% from the $16.2 billion spent on content in 2024 per Variety and comes as the streamer is facing increased criticism for its dialogue-heavy films and cheap-looking shows. Perhaps, with more money to spend in 2025 Netflix might cancel one or two fewer shows this year. Then again, they might just spend the extra money on the NFL instead.

I’m worried about Netflix’s NFL plans

Netflix wants to bid on NFL games, and I’m already exhausted.

The Traitors wraps up its best season yet

A winning reality TV series

Peacock

The Traitors (US)

Release Date: January 12, 2023
Showrunner: Stephen Lambert
Writers: Lee Grant, Christine Rose

I’m not the biggest fan of reality TV. However, even I can admit when producers find a winning formula, and I have been absolutely loving this latest season of The Traitors on Peacock. Broadly speaking, this competition series takes former reality game show contestants from the likes of Survivor, Big Brother and The Challenge and mixes them with a number of Bravo-lebirites (members of the casts of Real Housewives, Below Deck, Vanderpump Rules, etc.) and challenges them not only to participate in physical challenges to add to a prize pot, but also an overarching psychological game where they must figure out who among them are “traitors,” players that secretly eliminate others during “murder” rituals so they can claim the prize for themselves.

Though the show’s first season made for extremely watchable television, the second season faltered a bit as some unfortunate new elements were added to the game that altered the pace of play. However, season three has gone back to basics, and with an extremely strong cast that includes Survivor mainstay Boston Rob, Big Brother alums Danielle Reyes and Britney Haynes, Vanderpump Rules villain Tom Sandoval, and even Britney Spears’ ex-husband Sam Asghari, this season has been must-watch TV for me. The final episode of the season drops tonight, and if you haven’t checked in with this show yet, do yourself a favor, and boot up the Peacock app, stay off the Internet (you definitely don’t want this season’s twists spoiled for you) and get ready to experience the most compulsively watchable reality TV in years.