How the Biggest Streaming Services Stack Up at the End of 2021

2021 was another mammoth year for streaming, with every major service on the market notching subscriber gains as they churned out more content for seemingly insatiable viewers. But it was also a more challenging year for some of the biggest services on the market as domestic growth stalled and they scrambled for other ways to shore up their subscriber figures. As part of Adweek’s Year in Review, we took a look at the major streaming services and how they compare to one another scale-wise at the end of the year. We also took a look at streaming figures from a year ago to compare just how much they’ve grown in 12 months’ time. Here are our biggest takeaways from the state of streaming at the end of 2021. Netflix remains undefeated Adweek has previously written that the real battle in the streaming wars is for third place, as Netflix has easily maintained its years-long lead in streaming as its ever-increase programming investment in programming has kept it flourishing. Even as the company suffered from a slowdown in growth that has prompted it to look at supporting businesses like video games, the streamer ended the third quarter of 2021 (the last that will be reported this calendar year) in a very healthy first place, with nearly 214 million global subscribers compared to the 195 million it had in the third quarter of 2020. To keep its lead large, the company is pulling out all the stops to find other ways to win over customers, branching out into ecommerce and merchandising opportunities and focusing on mobile games and other small-screen experiences. Netflix is making its existing lineup of programming work extra-hard to help boost subscriber numbers. Take Squid Game, the South Korean dystopian drama that, seemingly overnight, became Netflix's most-watched series ever. All of this, of course, makes Netflix a difficult rival to overcome in scale. … but others are catching up fast That’s not for lack of trying. Disney is racing to catch up to Netflix’s scale with its trio of streaming services—Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+—and is, somewhat astonishingly at the end of 2021, nearly there. Disney+ had 118.1 million subscribers as of Disney’s last quarter, and Hulu and ESPN+ had 43.8 million and 17.1 million subscribers, respectively. In all, Disney has 174 million total streaming subscribers across its suite of services. That size reflects considerable growth of more than 50 million subscribers in a year's time. Just 12 months ago, Disney’s three streaming services had 120.6 million total subs. And 2022 will see the creation of a newly-merged company—Warner Bros. Discovery—that stands to rival both Disney and Netflix. The combination of HBO Max and Discovery under one company roof, which is expected to occur in mid-2022 barring the mega-merger clears regulatory hurdles, will allow for the companies to grow their subscriber count even larger. As of the most recent quarter, HBO and HBO Max had a combined 69.4 million subscribers, up more than 10 million than a year prior; Discovery+, which only debuted last January, has helped boost Discovery’s total direct-to-consumer streaming subscriber figures to 20 million. Discovery president and CEO David Zaslav, who will lead the newly-combined company, previously said that less than half of its Discovery+ subscribers also have HBO Max—so that combination could even stand to boost subscriber rates among customers who don't subscribe to both services yet—depending, of course, on how the company looks to combine the services. Good rebrands are good for business Streamer Paramount+ is helping deliver big gains for ViacomCBS since rebranding from CBS All Access in March, and the expansion and rebrand has helped boost the company’s global footprint considerably. A year ago, ViacomCBS reported 17.9 million total streaming subscribers, which at the time included CBS All Access and Showtime OTT, and smaller services like BET+. Now, that total count is nearing 47 million—up a whopping 262% compared to one year ago. Paramount+’s rebrand simplified the service to be more recognizable as a streamer while simultaneously expanding the service to be a global one. And re-introducing a mostly existing service to millions of consumers with a global brand campaign, while juicing up the service’s originals line-up, is delivering a big payoff to the company that wants to compete with the biggest streaming players. No news is bad news Other companies’ lack of transparency about their size and growth rate is not a vote of confidence about their attempts to make inroads in the streaming world. Key among them is NBCUniversal streamer Peacock, which last quarter failed to report its progress in lining up customers, despite the presence of the Summer Olympics, which the company had long anticipated would supercharge its user numbers. Even before that, the company was careful about the information it shared, only disclosing Peacock sign-ups. Peacock had 10 million sign-ups a year ago, a number that, as of this summer, had grown to 54 million. (Sign-ups aren’t paid subscribers to the Peacock Premium tier, or even returning free viewers, so it’s hard to parse from that meager disclosure how well the service is performing.) But with even less information, while it’s hard to see exactly where Peacock stands, it’s easy to see that the company isn’t interested that many people know. Then again, even meager data is better than none at all: it's been two years since Apple TV+ rolled out, and Apple has yet to release any hard numbers about the number of people who subscribe to, or have even sampled, that platform. Streamers Won Over Viewers During the Pandemic. Now They’ve Got to Keep Them