Netflix announced a redesign of its mobile app and the Clips vertical feed on 30 April 2026. The feature began rolling out in selected countries, including the US, UK, Australia and India. Within a few months, Disney+, Paramount+, Prime Video and Peacock made a similar shift. The traditional catalogue architecture no longer suffices as the only discovery model. Part of the audience, used to discovering content on TikTok, Reels and Shorts, is accustomed to finding it through short vertical previews, not just through posters, genres and search.
Disney+ launched its vertical feed Verts in the US in March. It presented the feature back in January at Disney's Global Tech & Data Showcase, building on Verts in the ESPN app from 2025. In April 2026 Paramount+ launched a short-form vertical feed in its iOS app. According to Business Insider, the initiative is linked to an internal programme called Project Eagle and to Ellison’s push for a tech-led direction. Amazon Prime Video announced on 8 May 2026 an extension of its Clips feed, originally launched during the 2025 to 2026 NBA season, to movies and shows. In May 2026 NBCUniversal announced two original Bravo microdramas for Peacock, and Business Insider subsequently reported that Peacock is also licensing 10 microdramas from ReelShort.
What Hollywood is doing with the feed
For years, streamers built their catalogues like video rental shops, just digital ones. The premise was that people arrive with a specific title in mind, and the interface helps them find it quickly. But that no longer holds.
According to the “Global Creator Commerce Study”, conducted in March 2025 by impact.com and EMARKETER, among 4,500 social media users aged 18 and over in eight countries (Australia, Canada, China, France, Italy, Singapore, the UK and the US), 63% of global social media users prefer short-form videos from creators over other formats. If a platform cannot provide discovery comparable to TikTok, it loses attention.
According to the report Generations In Play: 2026 Audience Insights Report from Dentsu and IGN, 59% of Gen Z respondents say they sign up for and cancel streaming services because of one specific title. Variety summarised this finding as a shift towards a ‘chase a single title’ logic.
Deloitte Digital Media Trends 2026 reports that 41% of American consumers cancelled at least one paid SVOD service in the last six months. In the 2025 edition, Deloitte reported 39%, and more than 50% among Gen Z and millennials.
Antenna, in its 2025 data, describes the US premium SVOD market as more mature and stabilised. The monthly weighted average churn rate settled at 4.6% in 2025. “Show chasers” or “serial churners” are thus becoming a structural part of the market. Antenna estimates that more than 29 million Americans, roughly a quarter of US streamers, cancelled three or more premium SVOD services over the past two years. Part of the audience actively rotates between services according to shows, prices and promotional offers.
And the vertical feed may be the answer. When users do not know what they want, a short clip shows them content faster than a hundred thumbnails. When a platform is tackling churn, every second in which a user reconsiders in the cancel dialogue has value.
Verts, Clips, Project Eagle
In terms of communication, Disney+ Verts is the most transparent case. The launch of Verts follows a test rollout in the ESPN app in August 2025. After the first few weeks, Disney claims that “Verts has driven additional engagement”. In its early stage the feature relies on clips from the catalogue, but Disney explicitly plans to expand with “content from creators that reflects our fandoms” and “other storytelling formats, content types, and personalized experiences”. The plan was first presented at Disney's 2026 Global Tech & Data Showcase during CES 2026 in January.
Netflix Clips has greater ambition and more conservative communication. Elizabeth Stone, Netflix’s chief product and technology officer, in the announcement to Variety said “Mobile is an important part of how Netflix members stay connected to the entertainment they love”. The feed in its current form serves clips of Netflix content, but Netflix plans to expand it to podcasts, live broadcasts and genre collections such as romance.
Paramount+ has its vertical feed as part of an internal initiative called “Project Eagle” under new Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison. The content today comes primarily from the existing catalogue, including South Park and The Madison. According to Business Insider, UGC has been discussed internally, but it is not confirmed as a concrete plan. The pace is faster and the communication quieter, because Ellison’s thesis is that Paramount must be more tech-led than content-led.
Amazon Prime Video started with sport. The Clips feed, originally launched with NBA highlights in the 2025 to 2026 season, was an easy test for Amazon, because sports clips are short, in demand and measurable. On 8 May 2026 it then announced an expansion to movies and shows. Amazon’s feed also has a transactional layer: from a clip, you can move to watching, buying, renting or subscribing. That is why it can be read not only as media discovery, but also as a retail product feature.
Peacock and the production strategy for the feed
Peacock goes furthest in this wave towards content made specifically for the feed. Alongside vertical clips, it licenses microdramas from ReelShort and is preparing its own Bravo microdramas. NBCUniversal announced two original Bravo microdramas in May, Salon Confessionals with Madison LeCroy and Campus Confidential: Miami. The episodes run 60 to 90 seconds, end on a cliffhanger and live exclusively in the Peacock mobile app.
At the same time, Peacock began licensing content directly from ReelShort, a microdrama platform whose gross consumer spending reached roughly $1.2 billion in 2025, according to Appfigures data. According to Business Insider, that made Peacock the first major US streamer to “treat a microdrama-native platform as a content supplier”. The feed needs a parallel production ecosystem with its own formats, its own creators and its own economics. A strategy of uploading clips from House of the Dragon simply is not enough.
Alongside this, the vertical drama platform aTwist signed a windowing deal with BET, under which BET co-develops original microseries. It airs the long cut first on a linear channel, and only then serves the vertical version to the aTwist app.
And TrueShort, an AI-generated platform of vertical short films with costs of $1,000 to $3,000 per title, raised $12 million in a seed round led by Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures. Investors also included WndrCo, Jeffrey Katzenberg’s company, and Ravi Nandan of A24.
The EU regulatory layer
European brands, media houses and streamers should keep an eye on the revision of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive. The public consultation closed on 1 May 2026, and the ex-post evaluation report is due to be presented by 19 December 2026. The key areas of the revision include the visibility of European media, a level playing field between traditional and digital players in advertising, and the protection of younger viewers in the online environment.
The EBU published five priorities for the revision on 30 April 2026, among them “reduced regulatory asymmetries between video-sharing platforms and regulated audiovisual services”. Thomas Bergmann, senior policy adviser at the EBU, described the existing directive as “a cornerstone of Europe's media pluralism and cultural diversity”.
From a regulatory point of view, however, it does not automatically follow that Netflix or Disney+ become video-sharing platforms within the meaning of the AVMSD. It is more accurate to say that their product interfaces are moving closer to social video logic, while European regulation is precisely working out how to level the rules between traditional audiovisual services, VOD players and digital platforms.
The next phase
Lindsey Gamble, VP Creator Strategy & Innovation, wrote in a LinkedIn summary of the topic that “we'll eventually see a wave of streaming platforms seeking out partnerships with short-form video creators focused on getting content for their short-form video experiences”. So after Disney, Netflix and Peacock, a phase should follow in which streamers stop clipping their own catalogue and start commissioning original vertical content from creators. Disney+ has already hinted at this in its communication about the future of Verts.
The open questions are whether the AVMSD revision will tighten the rules on the visibility of European content, even in the new feed interfaces of streaming apps; whether platforms will come up with an offer for European creators or make do with US products; and whether European streaming brands such as Voyo, Joyn or TV2 Play will respond with their own vertical feed before American platforms occupy the mobile screens of local subscribers.
In any case, the centre of attention is moving from large televisions to the phone. And on the phone, poster artwork is no longer the default. It is vertical video.
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