Welcome back to What I’m Hearing+. I’m Julia Alexander.

I hope you enjoyed a fantastic meal or two over the weekend with your family, friends, and pets. I spent my Christmas watching wall-to-wall basketball, particularly the Lakers and Celtics game, rather than the three experimentally scheduled NFL contests (well, two, since Christmas was on a Monday this year). My two cents: The NFL owns Thanksgiving. I don’t think the league also needs to dominate Christmas, a day the NBA has been scheduling games since 1947!

It may be Hollywood’s traditional dead week, but the industry is understandably aflutter with rumors and speculation about mergers, layoffs, and the trickle-down effects of the strikes. As the director of strategy at Parrot Analytics, I’ve been cataloging these premonitions (and the occasional burst of optimism). Today I’m making my predictions for the streaming business in 2024, from combinations to FAST infatuation to Netflixology.

But first…

• My ’23 scorecard: Yes, everyone is Nate Silver this time of year. But I work in the data salt mines and I believe in accountability. So allow me to first offer a few reflections on my ’23 prognostications.

  A year ago, I surmised that the studios would continue to offload content (check), streamers would...