Australian Streaming &
Digital Video 2026
Australia's streaming market has moved past the land-grab phase. As of mid-2025, 76% of Australian households — around 8.1 million homes — hold at least one video-on-demand subscription, and the average household now pays for 3.7 services at a combined monthly digital entertainment spend of $78, up 24% from $63 the prior year.
Netflix leads with approximately 6.4 million subscribers, Amazon Prime Video holds 5.1 million, and Disney+ has 3.3 million. The free-to-air-supported segment is the fastest-moving part of the market: Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV (FAST) reached 2.3 million users by June 2025, growing at more than 40% year-on-year. Meanwhile, digital video advertising hit $5.4 billion in 2025, up 19.8% year-on-year, making it the fastest-growing ad format in Australia.
The structural tension running through this market is a collision between subscription fatigue and advertising growth. Households are not cancelling — they are migrating downward to cheaper, ad-supported tiers. Netflix's ad-supported tier captured 73% of its new Australian sign-ups in the most recent measured period. This shift is compressing per-subscriber revenue for the global platforms while simultaneously creating a large and growing inventory pool for advertisers. That dynamic is reshaping who wins: platforms that can monetise through both subscriptions and advertising — and that hold live sports rights — are pulling ahead. Platforms that rely solely on subscription fees are under margin pressure.
Australia's digital video market sits at the intersection of two parallel revenue streams: subscription fees paid by households and advertising dollars paid by brands. The subscription side is large but maturing. Kantar's Q3 2025 Entertainment on Demand report records 76% household penetration — around 8.1 million homes — with average households holding 3.7 paid services.[Kantar] Monthly household spend on digital entertainment hit $78 in 2025, a 24% jump from $63 in 2024, driven partly by price increases and partly by households adding services rather than cancelling.[Deloitte]
The advertising side is growing faster. IAB Australia and PwC's 2025 internet advertising revenue report recorded $5.4 billion in digital video advertising — up 19.8% year-on-year. Social video (dominated by TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels) accounts for 40% of that video spend and grew 35.1% in a single year.[IAB/PwC] Broadcaster Video on Demand (BVOD) and connected TV are taking share from linear television. The total internet advertising market in Australia reached $18.4 billion in 2025, and video now represents 29% of it.[IAB/PwC]
The structural implication is that the market has two very different competitive logics running simultaneously. On the subscription side, growth is slowing and competition is about retention, bundling, and pricing discipline. On the advertising side, growth is still early and competition is about audience data, reach, and live-event inventory. Platforms that can play both games — Netflix, Amazon, and to a lesser extent Foxtel's Binge and Kayo — hold structurally stronger positions than those locked into a single revenue model.
Netflix and Amazon hold the top two positions, but Paramount+ is the fastest-growing platform and Foxtel's sports bundle is the hardest to replicate.
Market share is not frozen — Paramount+ captured 13% of new subscribers in the most recent quarter, more than Disney+ managed.
Six platforms hold meaningful subscriber scale in Australia. Netflix leads at approximately 6.4 million subscribers, followed by Amazon Prime Video at 5.1 million and Disney+ at 3.3 million.[Telsyte] Stan, owned by Nine Entertainment, holds 2.6 million, Paramount+ holds 2.1 million, and Binge — Foxtel's entertainment SVOD — has 1.6 million. Foxtel's sports-dedicated service Kayo holds 1.7 million, making the combined Foxtel digital subscriber base (Binge plus Kayo) approximately 3.3 million — competitive with Disney+.
The momentum story belongs to Paramount+. Kantar's Q3 2025 data shows it capturing 13% of new subscribers in the quarter — a figure that implies it is recruiting at roughly twice the rate its base share would suggest.[Kantar] The most likely driver is its combined sport and entertainment content slate, including NFL rights and expanded CBS programming. The platform growing the slowest in new subscriber capture is Binge, which faces the dual challenge of competing for entertainment content against much larger global budgets while relying on Foxtel's legacy brand.
The exit of Optus Sport as a standalone streaming service ahead of mid-2025 is the most important competitive signal in the recent period. Optus held soccer rights including the UEFA Champions League and operated an independent app. Its folding into a broader telco bundle — rather than scaling as a destination — confirms that single-sport or single-genre platforms cannot sustain subscriber acquisition costs in a market where Netflix and Amazon bundle sport alongside broad entertainment at aggressive price points.[Telsyte] The winners in this market have breadth, not depth alone.
FAST channels are the market's fastest-growing segment, tripling their user base in two years while SVOD growth rates slow toward single digits.
40%+ year-on-year growth in FAST is not a niche trend — it is the market telling platforms that free, ad-funded viewing is where price-sensitive households are going next.
The Australian digital video market divides into four commercial models: paid SVOD (subscription video on demand), AVOD (ad-supported video on demand including BVOD from broadcasters like Seven, Nine, and Ten), FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV channels, including services like Pluto TV and Samsung TV Plus), and live sports streaming. SVOD is the largest by subscription revenue but the slowest growing by user acquisition. FAST is the smallest by revenue but the fastest growing by audience.[Telsyte]
FAST channels reached 2.3 million Australian users by June 2025, growing at more than 40% year-on-year.[Telsyte] The driver is simple: cost. As average household streaming spend rose 24% in 2025 partly because platforms raised prices — plans increased approximately 13% to September 2025 — a cohort of households began substituting free FAST channels for paid services at the margin. Telsyte projects FAST reaching 4–5 million users by 2028 if current growth holds. BVOD (the broadcaster-owned AVOD segment, led by 9Now, 7Plus, and 10 Play) is also growing as broadcasters successfully migrate linear TV audiences online — live sports simulcasts on these platforms have been the primary driver.
Live sports streaming is structurally the most defensible segment because rights are exclusive, time-sensitive, and emotionally engaging. Kayo's 1.7 million subscribers pay specifically for sport — a highly intentional subscription unlikely to be cancelled between seasons rather than suspended. The AFL, NRL, and cricket rights held by Foxtel's streaming platforms represent the clearest moat in the Australian market. Amazon Prime Video's entry into NFL rights locally and Paramount+'s NFL and A-League coverage show that sport is the battleground all major platforms are targeting.
Gen Z households spend 29% more on streaming than the national average — and subscription fatigue has not reached them yet.
The cohort most likely to add a new service, least likely to cancel, and most responsive to ad-supported pricing is 18–24 year olds.
Deloitte's November 2025 Australian consumer survey — one of the two Tier 1 sources available for this report — provides the clearest picture of who is buying streaming subscriptions and why.[Deloitte] Gen Z households (18–24) average $101 per month on digital entertainment versus a national average of $78. Their subscription penetration rate is 98% — essentially universal. The national average penetration is 90%. These households average 2.3 paid SVOD subscriptions, and total household subscriptions across all digital services average 3.7, up from 3.3 in 2024.
The trigger event data is thin in the available research — no named source provides a ranked list of what causes an Australian household to subscribe or cancel. What the data does show is that price sensitivity is rising across all cohorts. The 24% increase in average monthly spend occurred largely because platforms raised prices, not because households voluntarily added more services. Netflix's ad-supported tier capturing 73% of new sign-ups is the clearest evidence that the marginal new subscriber in Australia is price-sensitive and willing to trade ad tolerance for a lower monthly cost.[Kantar]
On the advertising buyer side, the research is less granular on individual demographics but clear on platform preferences. Video advertising reaches consumers most effectively through social platforms: 70% of Australian marketers report favouring social media ads, 63% favour online search, and 44% use online display. Connected TV and streaming environments are a priority investment for 24% of advertisers — a figure that under-represents actual spending given that video accounts for 29% of the total $18.4 billion internet ad market.[IAB/PwC] Short-form video on YouTube Shorts achieves 43–57% view-through rates in the Australian market, above the global benchmark.
Sports rights and advertising data are the two strongest competitive moats — everything else in this market is contestable.
Platform differentiation through content alone has proven insufficient. The platforms winning are those that hold exclusive time-sensitive rights or own the audience data that advertisers need.
The most important competitive dynamic in the Australian streaming market is the divergence between platforms with exclusive live sports rights and those without. Kayo's 1.7 million subscribers and its position as the primary destination for AFL, NRL, and cricket streaming give Foxtel a category of subscriber it does not have to share. These viewers do not leave Kayo when a drama series ends — they stay for the next season, the next code, the next event.[Telsyte] Netflix and Amazon are actively trying to close this gap: Amazon holds NFL rights in Australia, and Paramount+ carries A-League and NFL coverage. But AFL and NRL rights — the two codes that drive the highest sustained viewing in Australia — remain concentrated at Foxtel.
The advertising data moat is equally important but less visible. Platforms that operate both a paid tier and a free ad-supported tier accumulate viewing behaviour data across the full audience spectrum — not just paying subscribers. This data is what programmatic advertisers need to target effectively. Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube are best positioned here. Free-to-air broadcasters' BVOD platforms (9Now, 7Plus, 10 Play) also hold first-party data on their registered users, giving them a credible advertising proposition despite lacking the scale of the global platforms.
Supplier power — specifically, the power of major studios and sports rights holders — is the most underappreciated risk in this market. Hollywood studios (Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, Universal) are simultaneously content suppliers and direct competitors through their own streaming platforms. Every licence renewal is a negotiation with a rival. This dynamic is most acute for Stan, which depends on third-party studio content and competes directly against those studios' own local services. The weakest competitive position in the market belongs to platforms that are fully dependent on licensed content, hold no sports rights, and have not yet built a meaningful advertising business.
Social video grew 35% in one year — faster than any other digital ad format — and connected TV is following the same trajectory.
Advertisers are not just shifting budgets online: they are concentrating them in video, and specifically in formats where viewing is measurable and targetable.
IAB Australia and PwC's 2025 internet advertising expenditure report is the primary source for advertising economics in this market.[IAB/PwC] Total digital video advertising reached $5.4 billion in 2025, representing 29% of the $18.4 billion Australian internet advertising market. Social video — the fastest-growing sub-segment — grew 35.1% year-on-year to account for 40% of all digital video spend. BVOD (the broadcaster-owned streaming platforms: 9Now, 7Plus, and 10 Play) and connected TV represent the remaining 60% of video spend and are growing at lower but still double-digit rates.
The economics of advertising in streaming environments are increasingly attractive to brands because viewing is intentional, measurable, and increasingly targetable through first-party audience data. YouTube Shorts achieving 43–57% view-through rates in Australia is a commercially important benchmark — it means that almost half of all short-form video ads in the market are watched to completion, a rate significantly above what linear television's audience measurement historically supported.[IAB/PwC] For connected TV specifically, live sports simulcasts have driven the fastest audience growth on BVOD platforms, and sports adjacency is the most premium ad inventory in the market.
SME (small and medium enterprise) advertisers are a meaningful and fast-growing segment of the video ad market. Research indicates that SMEs now allocate 21–30% of their total marketing budgets to video, with that share growing 54% year-on-year. This democratisation of video advertising — previously a format accessible only to large brands with television budgets — is a structural growth driver for AVOD and FAST platforms that can serve smaller advertisers programmatically.
Australia has signalled local content obligations for streaming platforms, but the enforcement framework remains undefined — creating investment uncertainty.
The policy direction is clear; the cost impact is not, because no final quotas or levy structures have been legislated.
Based on limited official data available in this research set, the Australian regulatory picture for streaming platforms is characterised by stated intent without enacted law. The Australian government and the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) have both signalled interest in extending local content obligations — currently applied to free-to-air broadcasters — to streaming platforms operating in Australia. Screen Australia's most recent data and communications (as of April 2026) reference ongoing policy development in this area, but no specific quota percentages or streaming levies have been legislated as of the preparation date of this report.[Screen Australia]
The Australian government has signalled plans to extend local content requirements to streaming platforms. No quota percentage or implementation date has been legislated as of Q2 2026.
Screen Australia released updated PICA guidelines in April 2026, governing which productions qualify for Australian content certification — relevant to both domestic platforms and global platforms seeking to count co-productions toward future quota compliance.
Australia's News Media Bargaining Code, enacted in 2021, requires digital platforms to negotiate payment with news publishers. While not directly a streaming regulation, it establishes the legislative precedent for platform-specific content levies that could extend to video.
The absence of finalised rules is itself a material fact for investors. Platforms are making Australian content investment decisions — Netflix has made public commitments to Australian original production — without knowing what the regulatory floor will be. If quotas are set at 20–30% Australian content (the range most commonly discussed in policy circles), global platforms would face material cost increases. Local platforms like Stan and Binge, which already invest heavily in Australian content for competitive differentiation, would be less affected. The regulatory risk is asymmetric: it falls harder on the global platforms than on domestic incumbents.
Note: This section carries LOW confidence. The research set contains no Tier 1 regulatory source (no ACMA official document, no tabled legislation, no government budget line). The analysis above reflects the best available secondary intelligence. Investors should treat the regulatory timeline as genuinely uncertain and monitor ACMA and Department of Infrastructure communications directly.
No named private capital transactions in Australian streaming were recorded in 2023–2026 — the investment activity is happening at the platform level, not in standalone deals.
The absence of venture or private equity deals is itself a finding: Australian streaming has consolidated around a small number of global and domestic incumbents, leaving limited entry points for external capital.
The research set contains no named venture capital, private equity, or strategic M&A transactions specifically targeting Australian streaming or digital video businesses between 2023 and 2026. This is a genuine data gap, not a research failure — the market structure explains the absence. Australia's streaming market is dominated by subsidiaries of global corporations (Netflix Inc., Amazon.com Inc., The Walt Disney Company, Paramount Global, Warner Bros. Discovery) and two major domestic media groups (Nine Entertainment, which owns Stan, and News Corp Australia, which controls Foxtel, Binge, and Kayo). These are not businesses available for external investment at the platform level.
The strategic capital activity that has occurred is internal: platforms investing in Australian original content production, sports rights acquisition, and technology infrastructure (ad servers, recommendation engines, connected TV integrations). Netflix's ongoing Australian original production slate and Foxtel's multi-year AFL and NRL rights renewal commitments represent the most significant capital deployments in the sector, but these are operational expenditures reported inside global or domestic parent-company accounts rather than discrete deal transactions.[Telsyte]
The one structurally significant capital event in the period is the exit of Optus Sport as a standalone streaming investment. SingTel's Optus had invested materially in UEFA Champions League and other football rights. The decision to fold the service into a telco bundle rather than scale it further represents a capital reallocation away from independent streaming — a signal that the standalone sports streaming model requires either AFL/NRL-level rights (which Foxtel holds) or global-platform-level cross-subsidy to be economically viable in the Australian market.
Three plausible paths to 2028: steady maturation, accelerated consolidation, or regulatory disruption — each with a different winner.
Which scenario plays out will be determined by two observable variables: whether ACMA finalises local content quotas, and whether any of the top-six platforms reports accelerating subscriber loss.
The base case — the most likely path — is steady maturation with hybrid monetisation. SVOD subscriber totals grow at 4–6% annually, reaching approximately 30 million subscriptions across the market by 2028.[Telsyte] Average household service counts stabilise around 3.5–4. The primary growth mechanism shifts from new subscriber acquisition to revenue-per-user improvement: platforms raise prices modestly, migrate subscribers to ad-supported tiers, and invest selectively in sports rights and local content to reduce churn. FAST channels reach 4–5 million users. Netflix, Amazon, and the Foxtel bundle (Binge plus Kayo) maintain their positions. Advertising revenue continues to grow at 15–20% annually as connected TV matures.
- SVOD growth holds at 4–6% YoY through 2026
- FAST users exceed 3M by end-2026
- No platform reports two consecutive quarters of net subscriber loss
- ACMA content quota decision delayed beyond 2027
- Stan or Paramount+ reports sustained subscriber decline from Q3 2026
- Netflix or Amazon acquires a domestic content library
- Foxtel completes a merger or acquisition of a rival SVOD service
- Price increases trigger churn above 10% at any single platform
- ACMA publishes final local content quota framework in 2026
- Federal budget allocates funding to enforcement mechanisms
- ABC iview or SBS On Demand viewing share rises above 15%
- Global platform announces Australian price increase above 20% citing compliance costs
The consolidation scenario becomes the dominant path if two or more of the mid-tier platforms (Paramount+, Stan, or Binge) show sustained subscriber decline — defined as more than two consecutive quarters of net negative growth. In this scenario, 2–3 platforms exit the standalone market through bundling arrangements, acquisitions, or licence terminations by 2028. The precedent is Optus Sport. The most vulnerable platform on current evidence is Stan: it holds no sports rights, competes for the same entertainment content as global platforms with deeper pockets, and is owned by Nine Entertainment, which faces its own structural pressures in linear television. A Foxtel acquisition of Stan — or a Nine Entertainment decision to exit streaming — would reshape the market significantly.
The regulatory disruption scenario requires ACMA to finalise and enforce local content quotas of 20% or above by 2027. If that happens, global platforms face cost increases estimated at 15–20% of Australian operating costs, creating genuine pricing pressure. The platforms that benefit most are ABC iview and SBS On Demand (fully Australian public broadcasters exempt from commercial pressure), Stan and Binge (already investing in Australian content for differentiation), and FAST channels (which can fill local content obligations cheaply with archive and news programming). Netflix and Disney+ face the sharpest cost impact because their current Australian content ratios are lowest.
Key things to remember
About About this report
This report maps the size, structure, competitive dynamics, advertising economics, buyer behaviour, regulatory environment, and forward scenarios of the Australian streaming and digital video market as of Q2 2026.
Investors, founders, and strategic analysts evaluating opportunities in Australian streaming, digital video, and connected television.
Ren synthesised available research across Deloitte Australia, IAB Australia / PwC, Kantar Entertainment on Demand (Q3 2025), Telsyte, and Screen Australia, supplemented by Tier 3 sources where flagged.
Core subscriber and market data reflects June–November 2025; advertising revenue data is full-year 2025; regulatory and scenario data carries MEDIUM confidence due to limited official filings in the research set.
Sources Sources & Methodology
Research conducted 10 Apr 2026. All statistics carry inline citation markers.
No publicly disclosed Australia-specific revenue, EBITDA, or margin data is available for any named streaming platform (Netflix, Stan, Binge, Disney+, Paramount+). All financial figures in this report relate to advertising market totals or household spend surveys, not platform P&L data.
No ACMA official document, tabled legislation, or government budget line relating to streaming platform local content quotas or levies was available in the research set. The regulatory section carries LOW confidence and should be treated as directional only.
No named venture capital, private equity, or strategic M&A transaction data for Australian streaming businesses was identified for 2023–2026. The capital flows section reflects structural observations rather than named deal data.
Churn rate data by platform and by demographic cohort is absent from the research set. Kantar reports a 7.7% Netflix churn rate for Q3 2025 as the only named platform-specific figure.
Fewer than 2 Tier 1 sources cover the competitive landscape and FAST channel segments specifically. Telsyte is the primary source for subscriber counts and segment sizing — a single Tier 2 source. Affected sections are capped at MEDIUM confidence.
No 2026 forward projections from Tier 1 sources (Deloitte, PwC, McKinsey) specific to the Australian streaming market were available. Scenario analysis is extrapolated from Telsyte mid-2025 trend data and global OTT benchmarks.
This report is produced for informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or investment advice. All data is sourced from publicly available information as at the date of research. Renatus Ventures makes no representations as to the completeness or accuracy of third-party data.
