The year ahead brings major change to streaming. Consolidation, tech disruption, and evolving audience expectations are pushing the industry to a tipping point and it’s because the modern consumer expects content to be expertly localized and attuned to market demands.

Here are 10 trends to consider for 2026 (and beyond).

1. Consolidation = New Localization Requirements

The potential sale of Warner Bros. Discovery, no matter who ends up being the final buyer, will dramatically reshape the entertainment landscape. But the real battle may be the brand and content integration. Studies find M&A failure rates in the 70–90% range, largely because integration is mishandled. And even before close, due diligence evaluation often misses value. For instance, McKinsey has found in the past that this process can overlook up to 50% of potential merger value.

In streaming, those “missed” areas show up immediately in marketing and localization: harmonizing brand identity across markets (where consistent branding has been linked to up to close to a third of revenue uplift), reconciling localization workflows and quality standards, and integrating catalogs whose metadata and marketing assets vary wildly by territory. Discovery friction is already a major pain point for consumers, so messy metadata and marketing integration across content catalogues only compounds churn risk.  

The winners will treat localization strategy as a core integration workstream, not a post-merger cleanup task. 

2. FAST and AVOD Mature Beyond “Just Get It Out the Door”

FAST channels and AVOD platforms have seen explosive growth, but rapid expansion initially prioritized quantity over quality. Content providers will reimagine chaotic content dumps into more curated, user-friendly experiences. 

This necessitates marketing localization that requires calibrated content categorization, market-oriented programming strategies, and refined metadata that helps audiences actually discover content worth watching. 

Overall, FAST hours viewed YoY continue to increase. Last year’s increases are noteworthy: APAC +132%, EMEA +83%, LATAM +58% (with strong ad impression growth regionally as well). Expect additional increases this year as well. Also, one study found 53% of viewers were more likely to make a purchase after a local ad vs. 13% after a national ad, and majorities said local ads increase trust (70%), curiosity (73%), and connection (74%). 

In other words, the more locally relevant and attuned the content, the better. FAST/AVOD revenue is a function of fill, CPM, completion, and outcomes. Localization improves the “outcomes” side of the story, helping channels sell higher-value packages (especially for regional/national buyers with localized creative needs). 

3. YouTubers Want the Red Carpet Rolled Out

With over 2.5 billion monthly active users, YouTube dominates the attention economy by an almost absurd margin. As this reality further crystallizes, expect YouTube and its creator ecosystem to demand – and receive – treatment befitting industry rulers. 

This will require marketing localization strategies that better understand YouTube’s creator-driven culture, its algorithmic distribution model, and its more personalized and tailored relationship with audiences to optimize marketing and distribution.

4. The Creator Economy Hits Platforms

Related to the last trend, traditional studios are licensing creator-driven content in a hurry (e.g. Beast Games on Prime Video, Mark Rober’s CrunchLabs on Netflix, Fox’s “Tubi for Creators”), which introduces unique marketing localization challenges. 

Audiences follow creators because of parasocial relationships built on authenticity. Marketing localization must preserve the creator’s voice and personality across cultures, as opposed to just ensuring narrative comprehension.

This shifts the focus from a simplistic “translate and dub the show” to “preserve the creator’s essence.” This business reality requires informed cultural consultants and market specialists involved throughout the content marketing and distribution process. 

5. Audience Expansion and Engagement Demands Day-One Integration

As streaming platforms pursue global subscriber growth and consistent user engagement to justify their valuations, fine-tuned localization increasingly determines success or failure. The outdated playbook of “localize then launch” gives way to “build local credibility into the title release roadmap from conception.” 

This means marketing localization partners should be given seats at the strategy table during content campaign concepting, not called solely when titles are ready for public view. The cost of getting this wrong results in failed launches, abandoned markets, wasted marketing budgets and exceeds the investment in doing it right.

6. AI Localization Reaches Its Reckoning

AI-generated subtitles, dubbing and marketing assets promise significant cost savings and deliver, in some cases, impressive results. But audiences immediately notice any glaring quality issues. 

Platforms confronting higher churn rates can often trace poor retention back to accumulated micro-frustrations with issues like localization quality that diminish the user experience. Research shows that customer churn is rarely driven by a single failure, but by cumulative experience issues. 24% of customers abandon brands after one bad experience (and 70% after two negative experiences), with repeated small issues compounding the effect. 

In streaming, where discovery friction already causes nearly 19% of users to abandon a viewing session when search fails, low-quality localization (e.g., awkward subtitles, mistranslated marketing, inconsistent tone) adds to these micro-frustrations. Malfunctioning or poorly implemented automation can itself be a major contributor to frustration at the CX level where 68% of customers have had a bad chatbot or IVR experience. 

The winning approach isn’t “AI or human expertise” but rather “AI-assisted with cultural expert oversight.” This positions marketing localization partners not as costs to minimize but as essential quality experts who protect brand equity and audience relationships across markets. 

7. Metadata Transforms from Backend Busywork to Strategic Asset

Legacy content acquisitions give rise to metadata crises. Catalogs purchased cheaply need standardized, searchable, nuanced, and market-tagged metadata to actually monetize across territories. This mundane work makes “deep catalogue value” real rather than theoretical. It’s specialized labor requiring cultural fluency, market knowledge, and meticulous attention to detail. It can’t be completely automated away, despite what some executives hope. The platforms that invest in this infrastructure have the potential to unlock catalogue value that competitors leave dormant.

8. Market-Specific Marketing Becomes (Even More of) a Must

Content releases are becoming cultural events to stand out from the deluge of offerings. This is true whether a prized property set to go live is a four-quadrant tentpole or niche independent film. Generic omnichannel campaigns no longer suffice in these cases. 

Sophisticated audience segmentation across digital platforms, AI search optimization, and IRL components (e.g. pop-ups, immersive activations) must all be calibrated for the particulars of a given market. 

What lands effectively in Seoul differs from São Paulo, which differs from Stockholm. Marketing localization needs to inform campaign development from the concepting phase, ensuring every activation earns audience attention in culturally resonant fashion.

9. Exhibition Evolution Creates New Marketing Opportunities

Movie theaters face an existential challenge: shortened windows, exorbitant costs and home viewing quality that rivals theatrical presentation. Survival requires transformation into experiential destinations – premium technology, immersive environments, integrated entertainment complexes (as evidenced by the Netflix House attractions). For marketing localization, this yields opportunities for experiential marketing that connects digital campaigns to physical spaces, but only if designed with local contexts and preferences in mind.

10. Theatrical-Streaming Integration Compresses Timelines

Shortened windows and day-and-date releases demand simultaneous global rollouts with culturally-calibrated messaging—no more “premiere in US, localize for international markets months later.” This timeline compression means, again, marketing localization can’t be relegated to post-production, it must be integrated into creative development. Campaigns and on-platform presentation (e.g. trailers, title treatments, synopses) should be conceived at a global level, with localization considerations informing creative decisions, not constraining them after the fact.

Final Thought

These trends share a recurring theme: respect for cultural specificity is no longer optional. Audiences everywhere reward providers who meet them where they are with content and marketing attuned to their interests, contexts and cultural expectations. 

The streamers and studios that value marketing localization as a tenet of their content release and distribution strategy, rather than as an operational afterthought, will still be standing when the current industry transformation settles into a new equilibrium.

The market demands resonant, diverse and tailored content at scale. The question is whether providers are adequately equipped and flexible enough to meet this pivotal moment, a moment where you need to be local everywhere for all content to cut through the chaos.