Welcome back to What I’m Hearing+, my new weekly complement to Matt Belloni’s flagship property, focused on the streaming industry and the analytics behind it all.

Tonight’s email is inspired by the thoughtful feedback from my call last week with Inner Circle members. I’m addressing some of the biggest questions and challenges facing Hollywood as the streaming battlefield subdivides and the emerging players—Apple, Paramount, Peacock, WBD, etc.—choose specific strategies to fit their evolving needs.

But first…

• Dahmer eats up the competition: Everyone is obsessed with comparing House of the Dragon to The Rings of Power, but one of the clear winners this fall is Netflix’s Dahmer. Ryan Murphy’s true crime series starring Evan Peters has become Netflix’s fourth-most-watched show debut ever (as measured within the first 28 days), with 701.3 million hours viewed. And Dahmer did it in just 21 days. It’s also Netflix’s second-most-watched English-language debut, though well behind Stranger Things 4’s gigantic 1.3 billion hours. The series is everything that Netflix’s nine-figure deal with Murphy promised: a zeitgeist moment, massive engagement, and...

We are indeed entering a great rebundling period, but the transition will be slow and steady and incremental. It will likely encompass M&A, ecosystem building, and cross-industry leveraging...