Streaming platforms will drive “modest growth” in global content spend this year, widening the gap with traditional broadcasters as shifting dynamics reshape the market, Ampere Analysis said today. 

While the divergence between global streamers and local broadcasters continues to widen, broadcasters outside the U.S. “show slightly better resilience, maintaining their investment levels through 2026”. 

Global content investment will reach US$255 billion in 2026, rising 2% year-on-year, according to Ampere’s latest forecasts. 

“Growth continues to be driven by sustained investment from global streaming platforms, which are further increasing their share of content spend. While overall growth remains modest, this continued shift is widening the gap with traditional broadcasters, as ongoing advertising pressures impact their ability to increase content investment,” the report said.

Ampere Analysis forecasts that ad-funded and subscription-based streamers will spend US$101 billion on content in 2026, representing around two-fifths of total global content spend.

Ampere said it expected pay TV, commercial broadcasters, and public broadcasters to see stagnant or declining content investment, “reflecting ongoing pressure on advertising revenues and rising production costs”.

Major global sporting events, including the football World Cup and Winter Olympics, will provide a boost to content spend in 2026. Historically dominated by broadcast television, streaming platforms continue to expand their sports strategies.

In 2025, streamers overtook commercial broadcasters for overall contribution to the content spend landscape for the first time, Peter Ingram, Ampere Analysis’s research manager, said. 

“In 2026, we expect streamers to further build on this, seeing 6% growth in expenditure,” he said, adding: “The accelerating shift in content investment toward streaming underscores a structural rebalancing of the global TV market, with scale and reach emerging as the central competitive differentiators for operators to remain buoyant”.