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The World Ahead | Culture in 2025

Streaming slows to a trickle in 2025

Pay more, watch less: TV’s golden era comes to an end

Illustration of a TV streaming breaking up
Illustration: Twisha Patni

By Tom Wainwright, Media editor, The Economist

An embarrassment of riches awaits television and film audiences in 2025, as projects that were delayed by a Hollywood strike in 2023 reach the small and big screens at last. New instalments of “Avatar”, “Mission: Impossible” and “Captain America” will jostle for attention at the cinema. At home, viewers will settle down for more of “The White Lotus” and the final chapter of “Stranger Things”.

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This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2025 under the headline “Pay more, watch less”

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