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The streaming wars were supposed to be settled. Netflix set the standard with technology and scale. Disney built its moat on beloved characters and global franchises. For years, the two giants looked untouchable, while smaller players were left to fight over what remained. But disruption rarely respects incumbency. Paramount+, long dismissed as a laggard, is suddenly back in the fight. Armed with an $8.4 billion merger with Skydance, new leadership, and a willingness to bet on reinvention, the service is forcing a rethink of how the next chapter of streaming might unfold.
The next phase of streaming competition won't be defined by who owns the most content, but by who reimagines the business model fastest. Paramount+ offers a vivid test case in leadership under pressure -- managing layoffs that could reach 3,000 employees, retooling its strategy around live sports, experimenting with AI, and trying to fuse the DNA of a legacy studio with the energy of a start-up. The choices its leaders make won't just shape Paramount+'s survival. They may reveal how every established institution, in media and beyond, must learn to disrupt or be disrupted.
In Q2 2025, Netflix only added 3 million subscribers worldwide -- less than half the pace of the year before. Disney+ has roughly 178 million subscribers, yet its streaming arm still lost more than $300 million last quarter. Both companies remain formidable, but their breakout era has ended. They're incumbents now -- big, entrenched, and vulnerable.
For Paramount+, that shift creates an opening. In a market where subscriber fatigue is real and traditional playbooks are faltering, agility may count more than size.
The Paramount-Skydance merger created a new $28 billion entity. David Ellison, now CEO, and Jeff Shell, President, have the unenviable job of pulling a legacy giant into a digital future. Their mandate isn't to catch up. It's to reinvent.
That reinvention begins with painful tradeoffs. For example, in order to realize savings approaching $2 billion, Paramount's strategy is to cut up to 3,000 jobs in the next 60 days. These kinds of disruptive structural changes are reminders that leaders are not only consistently tested on strategy, but on people -- to steady morale, to retain talent, and to still make bold moves with an employee-based infrastructure.
Ellison and Shell, the leadership duo at the helm, know they can't win by outspending Netflix or Disney on scripted series. Their bets fall into three areas:
This isn't mere mimicry -- it's an underdog playbook: finding angles the giants can't or won't exploit.
What's unfolding in streaming is a leadership parable that extends far outside media.
Competitive advantage now decays in months, not years. Netflix's slowdown shows how quickly market dominance erodes. Underdogs have leverage too: Paramount+ may have fewer resources, but it can pivot faster than scale-bound incumbents. And, leadership in disruption requires agility over certainty. Ellison and Shell must take risks in real time while motivating a workforce battered by cuts.
Whether it's finance, education, or healthcare, the real challenge is the same: finding ways to turn limits into opportunities when disruption hits.
If Paramount+ falters, it could fade into irrelevance and trigger yet another wave of consolidation. But if it finds its footing, it might just show the way for legacy players -- from universities to banks to manufacturers -- to reinvent themselves in an economy defined by disruption.
Netflix and Disney defined the first era of streaming. Paramount+ wants to define the next. The real question is whether leadership, not scale, will prove to be the ultimate disruptor.