2025 Digital Media Trends | Deloitte Insights

Yorman Wurmser, “Social media and streaming apps drive rapid growth in video ads,” eMarketer, April 2, 2024.

Deloitte’s analysis of Digital Media Trends data from 2024 to 2025.

Paul Lee, Eliza Pearce, Rupert Darbyshire, and Kevin Westcott, “Reevaluating direct-to-consumer: The shift towards video aggregators,” Deloitte Insights, Nov. 19, 2024; Newscast Studio, “Super aggregation and skinny bundles: Customer retention and acquisition in the age of cord cutting,” press release, Sept. 9, 2024.

Gloria Guzman and Melissa Kollar, “Income in the United States: 2023,” United States Census Bureau, Sept. 10, 2024.

US Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Consumer price index: 2024 in review,” Jan. 24, 2025.

Financial well-being data from Deloitte Insights’ ConsumerSignals.

Cable and satellite television services deliver programming through set-top hardware vs. live streaming television services that deliver live programming through an internet connection.

Kevin Westcott, Jana Arbanas, Chris Arkenberg, Brooke Auxier, Jeff Loucks, and Kevin Downs, “2022 Digital media trends, 16^th edition: Toward the metaverse,” Deloitte Insights, March 28, 2022.

Kevin Westcott, Jeff Loucks, Kevin Downs, and Jeanette Watson, “Digital media trends, 13^th edition: Piecing it together,” Deloitte Insights, March 19, 2019; Sayantani Mazumder, Hanish Patel, and Brooke Auxier, “Memorable vs. annoying: How consumers experience ads on digital platforms,” Deloitte Insights, Nov. 4, 2021.

Deloitte Insights, “2024 Digital Media Trends,” March 20, 2024.

Ed Bott, “Is your live TV streaming service still worth it? I review options for every budget,” ZDNET, Feb. 28, 2025. 

Georg Szalai, “Streaming to overtake pay TV subscription revenue in the U.S. this year,” The Hollywood Reporter, Feb. 26, 2024.

Kate Scott-Dawkins and Nidhi Shah, 2024 global end-of-year forecast, Groupm, accessed March 2025..

Deloitte Insights, “2024 Digital Media Trends.” 

Based on Deloitte analysis of the top 12 SVOD services on the market. This average includes only those services that currently (as of February 2025) offer both an ad-free and ad-supported tier to consumers. If a service had multiple ad-free or ad-supported tiers, the lowest priced option was used in the calculation.

In the fall of 2022, Deloitte surveyed 2,328 US consumers (ages 18 to 65) who reported being the sole decision maker, or a strong influence in decision-making, around the SVOD service subscriptions in their household. Respondents were asked questions about the services they subscribe to and their content preferences and participated in a survey method where they selected their preferred streaming video service profiles, based on varying attributes (a conjoint analysis). 

Churn figures for individual services are significantly lower than this aggregate number, but Deloitte reports churn as the percentage of consumers who have canceled any SVOD service in the last six-month period (rather than an average across services).

Bruce Gil, “Even a grocery store is offering free streaming perks now,” Quartz, Oct. 8, 2024.

Deloitte Insights, “2024 Digital Media Trends.” 

Based on Deloitte analysis of the top 12 SVOD services on the market. This average includes only those services that currently (as of February 2025) offer both an ad-free and ad-supported tier to consumers. If a service had multiple ad-free or ad-supported tiers, the lowest-priced option was used in the calculation.

Scott-Dawkins and Shah, “2024 global end-of-year forecast.”

Mazumder, Patel, and Auxier, “Memorable vs. annoying”; Spotify, “An interview with Eric Seufert about the current state of digital advertising,” podcast, Oct. 10, 2024.

Based on recent earnings announcements from leading providers. 

Aubree Smith, “Influencer relationships (with consumers & brands) are evolving—what does that mean for marketers?” Sprout Social, April 29, 2024; Anna Iovine, “What are parasocial relationships?” Mashable, May 16, 2024.

Todd Spangler, “Six biggest companies to spend record $126 billion on content in 2024, up 9% led by Disney,” Variety, Oct. 29, 2024. 

Andrew Hutchinson, “YouTube adds more AI assistance tools for creators,” SocialMediaToday, June 4, 2024; Meta, “Meta’s AI products just got smarter and more useful,” Sept. 25, 2024.

Brooke Auxier and Dennis Ortiz, “The future of shoppable media can build on the success of social shopping,” Deloitte Insights, Sept. 11, 2023.

Lucas Shaw, “Film and TV profits have collapsed over the last decade,” Bloomberg, June 26, 2023. 

Meaghan Yuen, “US marketers favor social media and TV for ad spend,” eMarketer, July 26, 2023; What awaits advertisers in 2025: More inventory, lower CPMs, eMarketer, Dec. 11, 2024.

Benjamin Mullin and Lauren Hirsch, “Media moguls set the stage for deal mania,” The New York Times, Dec. 13, 2024.

Keith Valory, “The streaming struggle is real for all parties: Can Adtech save TV?” Forbes, Oct. 16, 2024; Jennifer Maas, “AMC Networks launches ‘AMCN Outcomes’ to measure actions consumers take in response to ads,” Variety, Feb. 4, 2025; Peter Adams, Netflix’s next phase of advertising growth hinges on in-house ad tech, Marketing Dive, Jan. 22, 2025.

Todd Spangler, “Warner Bros. releases 31 full-length movies on its YouTube channels, streaming for free,” Variety, Feb. 6, 2025.

Deloitte analysis of market caps for leading traditional studios, social platforms, and hyperscale service providers that also compete in media. 

Nielsen, “TV viewing trends in the U.S.,” January 2025.

Interactive Advertising Bureau, “Digital video ad spend growing nearly 80% faster than media overall, according to IAB video ad spend and strategy report,” press release, April 25, 2024.

Andrew Wallenstein, “How short-form video can help, not hurt, Hollywood,” Variety, Jan. 29, 2025; Kevin Westcott, Jana Arbanas, Jeff Loucks, and Bree Matheson, “Social media and creators drive viewers to TV shows movies, and games,” Deloitte Insights, March 20, 2024.

Paul Lee, Eliza Pearce, Rupert Darbyshire, and Kevin Westcott, “Reevaluating direct-to-consumer: The shift towards video aggregators,” Deloitte Insights, Nov. 19, 2024.

Lillian Rizzo, “Comcast to launch Universal Ads in bid to win smaller advertisers over from tech,” CNBC, Jan. 6, 2025.

Winston Cho, “Why Los Angeles is becoming a production graveyard,” The Hollywood Reporter, Oct. 23, 2024; Doug Shapiro, “Power laws in culture,” Medium, March 16, 2023.

Henry Chandonnet, “From Quibi’s ashes, new short-form streamers are thriving,” Fast Company, Nov. 11, 2024. 

Wallenstein, “How short-form video can help, not hurt, Hollywood.” 

Westcott, Arbanas, Loucks, and Matheson, “Social media and creators drive viewers to TV shows movies, and games”; Deloitte, “The creator economy in 3D,” accessed March 2025; LCH Global Ventures, “The cultural impact of viral trends in entertainment,” blog, Nov. 28, 2024.