April 13, 2026
Nostradamus Perspectives

The once surprising shift to streaming 

The Nostradamus report has been looking at the future since 2013. It is time to check in with some of the claims and predictions that have been made over the years. First up: the paradigm shift from linear TV to streaming content and beyond.

“In very few years, the pay TV set-top boxes are gone, and all small screen content will be represented by streaming icons on a single device. We will probably call it all “television”. The whole metaphor of chronological “windows” will be increasingly incomprehensible to consumers, who found it difficult to grasp even when the windows were represented by physical media or separate remote controls. Now it will all be one thing or divided into broad conceptual categories of “free”, “subscription” and “transactional”. This is the context in which feature films too will eventually find the majority of their audience.” (Nostradamus Report 2018)

Already in 2015, one of the interviewees in the Nostradamus report predicted that within five years likely 75% of all viewing would be streaming for people under 40s as opposed to linear television. By 2018 there was a strong sense from several interviewees that SVOD would soon eclipse TV entirely. 

Broadly, the predictions hold up. Linear TV still exists, but streaming is now the norm. In the US, streaming surpassed both broadcast and cable TV viewership in all ages in mid-2025.

More surprising though is the paradigm shift away from traditional TV content altogether.

In 2026 media consumption means not just streaming TV and film but also includes microdramas and creator-driven content on social media. Social media itself has moved away from social and is increasingly used as distribution for professional and semi-professional video content. In the US, reports show that viewers spend more time watching vertical video on their phones than they do watching the major streamers on their mobile devices. Even on TVs themselves, YouTube now outperforms all other streamers and does not seem to be slowing down yet. The conversation about the ideal theatrical windows continues though and there seems to be indications that show that a successful cinema release does help a film find its streaming audience as well. 

So yes, streaming won. But the deeper Nostradamus flashback is this: linear TV was not simply replaced by “television on demand”. It was taken over by a much bigger and more fragmented video ecosystem than most of us could even imagine.