There are a number of streaming services on the market today, and one that focuses on science content and documentaries is Curiosity Stream. It is offered at a price of $39.99 per year, which is quite a good value for the content offered through it.
Most recently, while video streaming services look to generate additional revenue through advertising, Curiosity Stream is looking to generate revenue by licensing content to AI-based firms. This content is usually used to train public language models by each of these companies.
So far this year alone, this licensing has generated $23.4 million – which is more than half of the subscription revenue generated in 2024. With this increase in revenue, Curiosity Stream’s CEO is targeting their revenue through licensing content to AI companies to surpass subscription revenue by 2027 – or perhaps even earlier.
This provides a new form of revenue for smaller streaming companies, ensuring they can continue to operate for longer. However, it is unknown how long this form of revenue will last, as the amount of new content published each year is decreasing compared to the first-time catalog, which may lead to a reduction in content licensing revenue year-on-year.
