With New Genres, Viewers Like You Are Altering What TV Truly Means

It seems like each different week we’re getting hit with information in regards to the leisure business that impacts us as TV watchers. There are price hikes. There are company mergers. Dwell sports activities streaming is messy. And there is the continuing convo about whether or not we’re again within the cable TV period, regardless of streaming companies’ takeover of our wallets and screens. 

It is no shock that, on common, we spend $101 a month on streaming right here within the US. It is most likely no shock that the variety of households that also have conventional TV has declined to 41%, whereas 91% of us have streaming subscriptions, according to Parks Associates. We’re streaming Stranger Things, NFL games, Landman and stay occasions just like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. We watch loads at dwelling, and we watch extra on our telephones — whether or not we’re on the go or staying put at dwelling. 

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However there’s one thing else occurring. We, as viewers, are altering the kind of content material that’s king, and we’re influencing how and what tales are made. 

Microseries might be the following ‘it’ style

Deloitte revealed its 2026 Technology, Media & Telecommunications Predictions report in November, highlighting the brand new instructions TV is taking, because of our evolving viewing habits. The takeaway? Prepare for extra microseries and video podcasts. 

This yr, media analysis specialists say we’re consuming extra video content material by means of social media and streaming companies, reminiscent of YouTube, Netflix and TikTok, moderately than conventional TV. Whereas there’s an uptick throughout all generations, Gen Z and millennials surveyed are getting most of their video leisure by means of social media and think about it their major manner of watching TV — by way of their telephones. It is a shift that has gotten audiences accustomed to abbreviated types of leisure the place there’s an urge for food for short-form vertical movies, and microseries might turn into the following large wave.  

Popularized in China, microseries — and their subgroup, microdramas — are brief, bite-sized TV reveals and movies designed for cellphone viewing, usually lasting one to 2 minutes per episode. (Sure, it sounds just like the now-defunct Quibi platform.) The idea is taking off within the UK, the place there are manufacturing homes like Onset Octopus devoted solely to the format, and right here within the US, the place you could find apps like ReelShort, DramaBox or GoodShort pumping out cleaning soap opera-esque dramas. 

Sometimes, you will have seen clips pop up in your TikTok or Instagram feed, beckoning you to stream I Kicked Out My Three Fiances in My Second Life in its entirety — damaged down into 60- or 90-second segments. Whereas some content material is free, a paid subscription is required to stream all content material in an app’s library.

Deloitte predicts that in 2026, microseries’ in-app revenue will surge to $7.8 billion, double the projected quantity for 2025 at $3.8 billion. For conventional Hollywood leisure manufacturers, there are alternatives to step into this rising style of microcontent by means of collaborations with particular person creators, fastidiously curated use of generative AI or by utilizing what these corporations have already got.  

After I spoke with Wenny Katzenstein, a managing director at Deloitte, she famous that media giants could discover a gap to seize viewers’ eyeballs by “utilizing them to really drive again to IP that already exists.” It is a strategy to reconnect with followers like us by turning our consideration towards acquainted characters and titles by means of newly created microcontent — and even AI-generated content material — and really might not be that far off for some corporations. 

Eric Schrier, president of Disney’s tv studios, recently told Variety that he hopes to carry microstorytelling to the platform quickly by way of vertical video, however there aren’t any agency plans on when. For now, the main focus is on easy methods to carry manufacturing as much as par to fulfill Disney Plus’ requirements. 

Viewers appear to be open to extra, with Activate Consulting reporting that 52% of adults it surveyed aged 18 to 34 used no less than one microdrama app to look at one thing. That does not imply streaming TV platforms will go extinct however it might imply that what we’ll see within the realm of vertical video expands to greater than Tubi’s Scenes characteristic or Netflix’s experiment with short-form feeds on its cellular app.

Video podcasts, or vodcasts, acquire reputation

Who says podcasts are simply in your ears? Video podcasts hit your TV and cellphone screens as incessantly as new episodes of community reveals like Chicago Hearth. There’s additionally a time period for them which you could both embrace or hate: vodcasts. 

It is doubtless you have already watched video podcasts on YouTube, Spotify or Wondery, and it is also doubtless you have scrolled by means of clips (viral or not) on social media. Some viewers stream episodes utilizing paid subscriptions, and also you’re additionally most likely watching advertisements in alternate for catching a free episode. Irrespective of the way you slice it, it is a format that is right here to remain, and as you will have guessed, there are two teams who watch commonly: millennials and Gen Z-ers. 

Throughout its fall 2025 survey, Deloitte discovered 27% of shoppers it surveyed within the US watch vodcasts weekly, and Activate Consulting mentioned 70% of the highest 50 US audio podcasts have a video providing. When you concentrate on your must-see TV reveals, do you embody titles like Crime Junkie AF or Membership Shay Shay? Pointing to elements reminiscent of parasocial relationships with company and vodcast hosts, in addition to the flexibility to include visuals, Deloitte famous that viewers acquire a greater sense of authenticity and relatability — making them extra prone to return and watch extra. 

Already a mainstay on YouTube, vodcasts are spreading to extra screens. In a significant transfer, Netflix is getting within the recreation, partnering with iHeartMedia, Barstool Sports activities and Spotify to launch video podcasts on the streaming platform in 2026 for US viewers. In the event you’re a fan of The Breakfast Membership, The Ringer NFL Present, Conspiracy Theories or The Ryen Russillo Present, you’ll open the Netflix app to stream these titles and no less than two dozen others. 

What does it imply for the way forward for TV?

The Hollywood Reporter has described Vancouver as a microdrama production hotspot, with slightly little bit of curiosity trickling in from Hollywood. And Netflix will not be the one large streamer stepping into the vodcast enviornment, as Prime Video streams new episodes every week of New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce. Streaming companies and different media corporations proceed to check vertical video codecs in several methods.

Viewers such as you — who watch TV in your telephones — ought to put together for newer, broader types of leisure that embody mini episodes and speak TV (aka vodcasts). Count on a bump in video podcasts entry in your telephones and TVs subsequent yr and past, however do not anticipate anybody making an attempt to pry conventional weekly medical procedurals and hour-long bingeable episodes out of your fingers simply but. Streaming and cable are nonetheless on the menu, however they’re additionally embedded into your cellphone display screen, too. 

I requested Katzenstein what all this says about every era’s preferences for content material and the way it’s delivered.

“I feel the extent of entry that youthful generations have and that they’ve been educated for use to has an enormous implication on their want on the place they need to have interaction,” she mentioned. “I feel there’s additionally the will round having related content material after I need it, how I need it — it is one thing I feel youthful generations are simply used to.”

Retaining her personal teen kids in thoughts, Katzenstein defined that the concept of getting to attend for entry to theatrical movies, or for one thing to reach on streaming or linear TV — launched in keeping with an enormous media supplier’s phrases — is “simply utterly completely different for generations which are rising up seeing people who find themselves related to them.” She added that leisure corporations will probably be pushed to grasp that and meet the necessity.