SME Live Amsterdam is back!
Plus: Movistar Plus+ finds its groove, PAW Patrol runs Netflix Kids and more
đď¸ TF1+ comes for your commute
TF1+ just added a dedicated podcast category to its streaming platform, bringing together 21 brands, 453 episodes and over 220 hours of content spanning true crime, politics, culture, sport and more, all free and accessible from the homepage. The lineup leans on familiar TF1 faces: Jacques Pradel on criminal cases, Audrey Crespo-Mara on long-form celebrity interviews, François Lenglet on economic conversations and Pablo Mira on celebrity daily routines.
The format is video-first podcast (vodcast), designed to work whether you watch or just listen, which turns a streaming app into a companion app, one that follows users beyond the couch and into the commute, the kitchen and the gym. Extending reach beyond the living room has real value for a free ad-supported platform trying to maximise daily touch points.
Two years into its rebirth as TF1+, the broadcasterâs streaming platform is turning more and more into a multi-vertical entertainment destination that happens to be powered by a broadcaster. Throughout 2025, it garnered 38M monthly active users, with a peak at 42M in October, and itâs looking to give more and more reasons to users to come back and stay.
đŞđ¸ Movistar Plus+ finds its groove
Movistar Plus+ added 278,000 subscribers in 2025, a 7.9% year-on-year jump that took its total base to 3.8 million across IPTV and OTT. For context, in 2024 the net gain was just 94,000.
Their formula? Premium local originals, stacked sports rights and enough international series to round out the library. On the content side, Movistar Plus+ originals picked up 13 Goya Awards including Best Film and Best Director for Los Domingos. Sirat earned two Oscar nominations. On sports, Champions League renewed until 2031, LALIGA secured through 2031/32, the 2026 FIFA World Cup added through a DAZN deal and a new FIBA basketball agreement on top.
What makes Movistar Plus+ interesting is what it represents structurally. This is a telco-owned platform competing credibly against global streamers in a major European market by doing exactly what the textbook says: invest in local, lock up sports and grow distribution. In a continent where everyone talks about scale, Movistar Plus+ is proof that depth in a single market still works.
đ Europe is not America (and weâve got the data to prove it)
Four years of data, 17 countries, 15,000+ respondents. The RTL AdAlliance Living Room report is the largest ongoing study of European viewing behaviour
The 5th edition, which Streaming Made Easy is co-producing with RTL AdAlliance, goes even wider: three continents, and for the first time, data on how Europeans feel about AI-generated video content, long-form content chopped into shorts and more. We are unpacking it live on March 25th. Tune in live at 10am CET. Youâll get a QR code to download the full report afterwards.
đşđ¸ What US audiences actually want
Tubiâs annual audience study The Stream (produced with The Harris Poll) is out and itâs one of the few reports that tells you what US audiences actually do, not what the industry assumes they do. One stat that stood out: 77% of respondents prefer on-demand over scheduled linear streaming. Three to one. Another: three quarters of viewers say streaming together is now household quality time. Co-viewing is back, well it never really left.
Evan Shapiro and I got an advanced copy and broke it down on this weekâs Media Odyssey Podcast. We also dug into the Paramount investor deck making the rounds and letâs just say thereâs a lot of money talk and very little strategy in those slides.
The Stream is free. Go download it. The podcast is wherever you listen to podcasts: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | YOUTUBE.
đž PAW Patrol runs Netflix Kids
PAW Patrol claimed the number one spot in Netflix Kids by hours viewed in H2 2025, powered by its US debut on the platform. Thatâs the headline from the fifth edition of Emily Horganâs Netflix Kids Content Performance Report and itâs packed with signals worth tracking.
The preschool category is now the most competitive space in Netflix Kids. Gabbyâs Dollhouse still dominates across the full year with over 600 million hours viewed. Ms. Rachel jumped from number six to number four within her first year on the platform. CoComelonâs decline is now a multi-year trend that new seasons canât reverse. And Sesame Streetâs much-hyped Netflix arrival? Landed on the lower end of performance benchmarks.
Two patterns stand out. First, creator-led content is no longer a curiosity. Ms. Rachel, CrunchLabs (Mark Rober), Little Angel: YouTube-native brands are building real scale on Netflix. Second, legacy IP refuses to get out of style. SpongeBob pulled 143 million hours viewed, 40% ahead of its nearest comedy competitor, without even being on Netflix in the US. That catalogue power matters enormously as the Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery merger speculation continues. Where those franchises end up will reshape the kids streaming map for years.
Emily Horganâs report is the closest thing this space has to an industry standard. If you work in kids content, licensing or distribution, you gotta grab it here.
đŁ SME Live Amsterdam is back!
Our programming for SME Live Lisbon during Stream TV Europe is a wrap (we start at 9am sharp on April 13th!) so itâs time to get started on SME Live Amsterdam now.
Last September, 118 executives from Netflix, YouTube, BBC, Sky, Canal+, Paramount and 90+ other companies flew into Amsterdam a day before IBC for a half day of talks and networking. They rated the experience 4.7 out of 5.
On September 10th 2026, SME Live returns at a new location, Rode Hoed, expanding to a full day and ready to welcome 200+ executives around the theme of The Long Game. Five years of reactive mode, quarterly pressure and short-term pivots have left the industry good at firefighting and less good at building. This edition is designed to create space for the conversations that don't fit in a 45-minute panel: where European content investment actually goes from here, what the talent equation looks like when AI is in the room, which distribution models are built to last and who owns the audience relationship when the platform wars settle.
Talks, case studies and structured networking in a single-track room where Media meets Tech as equals. No overlapping sessions, no FOMO.
The waitlist is now open, priority access and early bird pricing go to waitlist subscribers first before tickets go on sale April 19th. Last year, the event sold out and 63 people were left on the outside looking in.
đłď¸ Poll time
Thatâs it for today. Enjoy your weekend and see you on Tuesday for a Deep Dive edition of Streaming Made Easy Premium.