Audience-researcher Parrot Analytics developed what it calls its Content Valuation system that attributes specific numbers of subscriber growth at video streaming platforms to specific program content.
“Examples of titles that illustrate [Disney+] ‘Streaming Window of Theatrical Movies’ strength in 1H25 [first half of calendar 2025] include ‘Deadpool & Wolverine,’ ‘Alien: Romulus,’ and ‘Moana 2,’” wrote investment analyst Bernstein Research. “Parrot highlighted that even if some movies don’t have a particularly notable performance at the box office, they can still contribute to gross adds on the streaming platform.” Bernstein’s Laurent Yoon and two colleagues authored. A frame from the “Moana 2” trailer is above.
Parrot Analytics notes that streamer Disney+ is particularly dependent on feature films, which get quick video-streaming play after theatrical release supplied by its corporate-sibling, Hollywood movie studio. Parrot attributes 5 million gross subscriber additions in the second quarter, or one third of Disney+ gross gains, due to its pipeline from Disney theatricals. The subscription base of Disney+ rose 1.4 million net in the quarter, which is lower than “gross additions” because net also factors in existing subs leaving.
Disney’s 5 million gross additions due to movies were fewer than 6.5 million new subscribers added in the same quarter a year ago, again according to Parrot. But the 5 million in 2025 is more than gross adds at streamers at Netflix, which isn’t directly connected to a Hollywood major studio (though has a first pay-window output movie deal with Sony Pictures), and HBO Max, which is sibling to Warner Bros. Pictures.
Parrot’s Content Evaluation system is what audience researchers call a “secret sauce,” which is a proprietary measurement that generates unique insights. It’s not a standard metric such as Nielsen TV ratings that everyone uses.
Parrot explains its Content Evaluation parses “first-party content consumption data from hundreds of millions of households around the world.” That big base of granular data on viewership evaluating “every consumer interaction … weighted according to the attention that signal captured from the consumer. This means, for example, content consumption is weighted heavier than social activity, search, and many other audience signals.”
Parrot finds original video streaming series make the biggest impact on subscriptions, with films both from theatrical and original in the mix to a lesser extent. Major streaming players are seeing increasing benefits from returning seasons of major TV series — less so from theatrical movies now making their debuts on connected TV platforms,” writes Wayne Friedman on digital news Media Post. TV series “Squid Games” lifts Netflix; and HBO Max benefits from “The Last of Us” and “The White Lotus.”
“Parrot estimates that 10 million of Netflix’ gross adds, or one-third, are joining their platform due to its Non-English content,” wrote Bernstein Research. Original TV series are the bulk of what’s attributed to lifting subscriptions.
Parrot is a Los Angeles-based researcher that values and estimates demand for content, talent, intellectual property and sports. It has offices worldwide.
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