For the past few weeks, I’ve shared a thought experiment I call platform chess—an exercise that I often employ with my clients at Parrot Analytics, where I work as director of strategy, to determine the genres in which each streaming service is under-invested, over-indexed, etcetera, specifically when it comes to originals they’re acquiring. In Part I, I examined the tech giant platforms: Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video, which still have room to grow. In Part II, I assessed the incumbents: Paramount+, Peacock, and Hulu, which have voluminous libraries, but must strategically horsetrade before they are bought or sold, themselves.

I’m not a creative executive, and I don’t pretend that I can re-program these platforms better than their own experts. But I can use proprietary data, as well as third-party sources like Nielsen and Antenna, to provide insights into what’s working, what’s not, and where capital could be deployed more effectively. Herewith, the third and final installment of my streamer report cards, focused on how Netflix, Max, and Disney+ are navigating the landscape—and where they can grow, or cut back, to create the largest and most stable businesses.