Hollywood wants to beat TikTok at its own game — but faces hurdles

• Hollywood streamers are turning to short-form video as YouTube and TikTok take viewership time.
• Netflix, Disney, and Paramount are adding, or planning to add, vertical clips to their streamers.
• Short-form video isn't a cure-all, media analysts warn.

Hollywood giants are betting that snack-sized vertical videos can lure back audiences entranced by TikTok clips and YouTube Shorts.

The world has become hooked on short-form video. Reels on Instagram and Facebook are generating revenue at an annual rate of $50 billion, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in October, while Google reiterated last week that YouTube Shorts are viewed over 200 billion times per day.

Short-form vertical videos are perfectly designed for phones, which most people carry 24/7, and for our increasingly short attention spans. As the streaming wars evolve, paid services see the phone as the next battleground they have to win.

"When it comes to engagement, sheer hours are no longer enough — you need frequency," Hernan Lopez, the founder of media research firm Owl & Co, told Business Insider. "To get frequency, you need a mobile, and to win in mobile, you need vertical."

Streaming executives have taken note. Paramount has made short-form video a product priority and wants to add a million short-form clips to Paramount+ "as quickly as possible," according to one exec, as Business Insider previously reported. Netflix and Peacock have also invested in short-form clips, while Disney has added vertical video to its revamped ESPN app and said it plans to do the same for Disney+.

"Short-form content is harder to monetize, especially from an advertiser perspective, but easier for young consumers to swallow," said Brandon Katz, the insights director at entertainment data firm Greenlight Analytics. "Not even attempting to engage with it isn't an option."

Spokespeople for Disney, Netflix, and NBCUniversal referred Business Insider to previous announcements and comments by executives about their short-form video initiatives. A Paramount spokesperson declined to comment.

Two birds with one stone

Streamers are scrambling for ways to narrow the gap with YouTube, whose viewership share on US TVs has more than doubled since May 2021, according to Nielsen. Higher engagement boosts advertising revenue and can help prevent cancellations.

Media analysts say vertical video can help streamers build habits and keep users engaged throughout the day, instead of just when they're lounging on their couches at night.

Emily Horgan, a media consultant focused on kids shows, said that "premium streaming is plowing into this space because of a need to own more lean-back moments in a viewer's day."

Streaming executives are also looking for cheap content that can eat up viewing hours in a world where premium scripted shows are more expensive to produce. Video podcasts are one growth area that streamers like Netflix are gravitating toward, and short-form video is another.

"User-generated content and short-form programming is more cost-effective than trying to hit on the next 'Stranger Things' and 'Mandalorian,'" Katz said.

Streamers can also use their premium shows and movies to create short-form video. Paramount plans to dabble in short-form video by first repurposing existing content on its platform, according to internal documents viewed by Business Insider.

However, those internal documents also revealed that Paramount is brainstorming ways to potentially add user-generated content, which is the backbone of Instagram and TikTok.

How streamers can learn from short-form flops

Short-form efforts among streamers have ramped up recently, but there have been false starts.

Netflix was the first major streamer to try short-form when it debuted a "Fast Laughs" feature in 2021 that brought brief vertical clips of comedies and shows to its mobile app, and later to the TV. However, the feed never took off and was retired two years after its launch.

Although Netflix's first foray into short-form video didn't charm audiences, it's not giving up yet. The streaming giant has been testing a vertical video feature since May to see what content and layout audiences prefer, a Netflix spokesperson said.

Disney is trying to boost streaming engagement by bringing vertical video to Disney+ this year, including "a curated slate" of AI-generated videos made by OpenAI's Sora, executives said on an earnings call in early February.

And Peacock has added short vertical videos from shows and the NBA games it broadcasts, a feature it first unveiled in early 2025.

One problem: It isn't yet clear that people want to binge short-form video on premium streamers instead of TikTok.

"Part of what makes YouTube and TikTok special with this format is the interactivity with comments, and the fact that the content is made by actual people," said Kasey Moore, who runs the What's on Netflix fan site that tracks Netflix releases.

Still, there could be some value in short form.

"The goal wouldn't be to suck up time quite like TikTok to then serve ads in between," Moore said of Netflix. "But rather, to leverage that specific format of video to provide tasters in the hopes of getting people to give engagement to the actual shows and movies that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise."