Julius Young — Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Vantage
Netflix hit 325 million subscribers and is spending $20 billion on content in 2026 as an independent platform. The states said the streaming market is uncompetitive. Netflix's content budget is the most powerful piece of evidence for the other side.
Netflix ended 2025 with 325 million subscribers worldwide, up from 301.2 million, and has committed to spending approximately $20 billion on content in 2026 — a 10% increase from $18 billion in 2025. Ad revenue hit $1.5 billion in 2025, up more than 2.5 times over 2024, with a doubling projected for 2026. Revenue guidance for the year is $50.7 billion to $51.7 billion. These are not projections from a company under stress. They are the operating numbers of the dominant player in global streaming, reported at a moment when the most consequential antitrust case in the entertainment business is explicitly about whether that market is competitive enough.
The twelve state AGs suing to block the Paramount-WBD merger have argued that consolidation in streaming reduces competition in ways that harm consumers and the creative economy. Paramount's defense: the market is broadly competitive. Netflix's $20 billion content budget is the most direct evidence for Paramount's position that does not require an attorney to present. A company spending $20 billion independently — no merger, no combined entity required — producing 597 new originals in 2025, serving 325 million subscribers globally, is not evidence of a market that lacks competition. The counterargument is that Netflix's dominance is itself the market structure problem — that the market has already concentrated around Netflix to a degree that makes additional consolidation below the Netflix tier more dangerous. That argument has doctrinal support. It does not change what Paramount's lawyers will put on screen when they open.
Netflix's expansion into licensing is also relevant. The company licensed approximately 20 shows from Paramount Skydance, expanded a Sony Pictures pay-one deal globally, and launched a new Universal Studios partnership for new-release films. Netflix is buying content from studios it does not own rather than acquiring them — demonstrating that the alternative to consolidation works at scale. The ad tier's 94 million users and $1.5 billion in revenue prove that Netflix does not need to acquire Paramount to build a sustainable business model. The business case for the merger includes the claim that scale makes streaming more economically viable. Netflix's ad revenue growth is evidence that scale is not the only path. A sufficiently dominant brand can build the ad business without the merger. Related: Paramount Agreed to Wait for a Trial