The Signal, Issue 10 — Netflix cut 1,000 jobs and its content chief. The streamers added 18% more ad minutes an hour.

The Wall Street Journal’s Walden Siew reports Netflix eliminated roughly 1,000 jobs, its biggest cuts since 2022, across product, tech, legal and HR, with co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos citing slower growth and declining engagement. Puck’s Matthew Belloni had the cuts first, and they reached the top: Variety’s Rebecca Rubin reports Bela Bajaria leaving after 10 years as chief content officer, replaced by former Disney and Fox executive Peter Rice. Business Insider’s James Faris has the reason: global viewing hours up just 2%, to 97 billion, in the first half, and Peter Kafka that the levers of 2022, ads and live sports, are already pulled. The spending did not stop with the staff: Dan DeFrancesco reports Netflix still buying Spotify video podcasts, NFL games through 2029 and the 2030 World Cup in Spain and Andorra, and TVREV’s Alan Wolk reads the cuts as a push to look more like YouTube.

The bill is landing in the ad break. MediaPost’s Wayne Friedman reports the leading streamers running 18% more ad minutes an hour in August than in January, with Paramount+, Hulu and Disney+ heaviest, on top of a 14% rise in ad-tier prices in 2025–26. The Hollywood Reporter’s Caitlin Huston reports Discovery+ adding $1 to its ad plan, to $6.99. And the content side is being squeezed from the other direction: Variety’s Todd Spangler reports CAA, WME and UTA backing a law that would make streamers spend half their content budgets on independent productions.

The new ad money is not going where the minutes are. MediaPost’s Joe Mandese reports ChatGPT passing 60,000 advertisers, up from more than 20,000 a month earlier, though Modern Retail’s Gabriela Barkho reports brands expect little holiday money to move from Google or Meta. Mandese also reports Nielsen’s 2027 cross-platform numbers rest on a synthetic method that splits its 40,000-household panel upwards of 30 times, with a planned MRC audit pulled. Even the commerce networks are pulling in: Next in Media’s Mike Shields reports United folding its Kinective network into its loyalty program.

What it costs you: a streamer that cuts staff because viewing has slowed, then sells 18% more minutes to the viewers it has, is selling the same audience more often. Before the upfront, ask each one what its ad load was in January and what it is now, and price the extra minutes as frequency, not reach.

The company spent its first days promising to spend. TheWrap reports the co-CEOs pledging over $30 billion in content, two separate film slates and a slow merger of the streamers, and The Ankler that David Ellison pitched roughly 190 series and 30 movies a year, more than Netflix or Disney. Deadline’s Jill Goldsmith reports Ellison and Ynon Kreiz calling nearly $80 billion of debt manageable. The Hollywood Reporter’s Tony Maglio reports Ellison saying HBO Max and Paramount+ become one service in the long term, and The Ankler’s Lesley Goldberg that he chose Casey Bloys over Cindy Holland to run them. Adweek’s Bill Bradley reports Jay Askinasi taking ad sales as WBD’s Ryan Gould and Bobby Voltaggio leave.

The market priced the promise. Goldsmith reports the stock down 6.8% in its second session, with analysts calling it a “show me story.” Variety’s Todd Spangler reports a market cap under $40 billion, against $77.7 billion for Warner Bros. Discovery and about $11 billion for Paramount on their last day of trading, and Deadline’s Jesse Whittock reports Evan Shapiro putting the company at $29 billion. MediaPost’s Wayne Friedman has analysts projecting combined ad revenue of $19.0 billion to $21.6 billion in 2027, up from $18.5 billion to $20.7 billion, for an owner TheWrap’s Kayla Cobb counts at 13.3% of all TV watched. Last week the question was which of its executives’ answers on the cuts to believe. This week investors answered: the spending plan is the part they discount.