By Staci West on 22 May 2026 in Specialist investing
If you know me, you know I love to read. Honestly, it doesn’t even matter what it is, I’ll read it. The trendier and more emotionally devastating, the better. Because nothing hits quite like finishing a viral book series, staring blankly at the wall for 20 minutes and then immediately opening TikTok to watch edits, theories and people screaming in all caps so I can continue living in that universe a little longer.
And you know what makes it even better? Book-to-screen adaptations.
2026 has absolutely delivered for the “just one more chapter” community. We’ve already had adaptations from Project Hail Mary, The Devil Wears Prada 2 and People We Meet on Vacation. On the TV side, we’ve got Margo’s Got Money Troubles, The Last Thing He Told Me and my current personality trait: Off Campus.
And listen. The world is loud right now. Every time I sit down at my desk there’s another geopolitical headline, another energy story, another reason to feel mildly overwhelmed. So if a hockey romance adaptation wants to bring me joy for eight episodes? I’m here for it.
Well. At first? Absolutely nothing. But I’ve entered full obsession mode and needed a legitimate reason to continue talking about Off Campus during business hours. And somewhere between episode discussions and reading casting discourse online, I started wondering: is streaming actually a good investment?
From a viewer perspective? Yes. Green light everything. Give me all the adaptations. Every Emily Henry book. Every hockey romance. Every morally grey man with excellent banter.
But from an investment perspective? That’s a more interesting question. So let’s take a closer look.
Ten years ago, the streaming investment case was mostly about replacing cable TV. And to be fair, that happened. I genuinely don’t know anyone under 35 with a cable subscription anymore.
Now the question is less “will streaming win?” and more “who actually profits from streaming?”
The obvious starting point is Netflix: the original streaming giant and arguably the cleanest investment case in the sector. It has global scale, recurring subscription revenue, strong margins and, increasingly, advertising potential.
Its recent results were strong too. Netflix reported first-quarter revenue of $12.25 billion, up 16% year-on-year, beating expectations*. Morgan Stanley analysts believe the company has plenty of room to grow, with an audience approaching one billion viewers*. Even more interesting is how often Netflix has reinvented itself.
As Ben James, investment specialist at Baillie Gifford, pointed out: “Netflix evolved from DVD-by-mail, to streaming, to original content, and now to advertising-supported subscriptions and live events. That ability to adapt is part of what keeps investors interested.”
Then we have Amazon. Prime Video has quietly become a book-to-screen powerhouse. We’ve had Reacher, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Maxton Hall, Daisy Jones & The Six, Good Omens and, of course, Off Campus.
I fully accept people probably aren’t buying Amazon shares just because they liked a TV adaptation. But with Amazon, you’re getting exposure to e-commerce, logistics, cloud computing, advertising and more. Prime Video is almost an added bonus, another piece of the ecosystem helping keep people inside the Prime membership universe.
That said, streaming is becoming increasingly important to Amazon’s wider strategy. Prime Video is expected to become the world’s biggest streaming investor in sports rights in 2026, according to Ampere Analysis, accounting for 27% of global streaming sports spend**. And as more viewers watch through Prime, it also creates opportunities for advertising growth and retail engagement.
The same “bigger ecosystem” argument applies to The Walt Disney Company. Disney isn’t just a streaming business. It owns massive intellectual property franchises including Star Wars, Marvel Cinematic Universe and Toy Story alongside theme parks, merchandise and cruise lines.
Which honestly makes me think streaming companies are becoming less about “TV” and more about owning worlds people want to stay inside.
But then I started thinking about something the managers of the WS Amati Global Investors fund mentioned on a recent podcast, and that’s the “enablers”. Because sometimes the best investment in a gold rush isn’t the miner — it’s the company selling the picks and shovels.
Streaming depends on a huge amount of infrastructure behind the scenes: cloud computing, semiconductors, content delivery networks, AI recommendation systems and advertising technology. Which suddenly expands the investment universe quite a bit. You’ve got Amazon again through AWS. Nvidia supplying the chips powering AI infrastructure. Alphabet through advertising and cloud services. Cloudflare helping deliver content quickly around the world.
So even if you’re not convinced streaming itself is the investment opportunity, the companies enabling the streaming economy might be.
And honestly? There’s another angle entirely: the books.
According to the Publishers Association, almost half of original UK and US drama series released on Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video between January 2024 and June 2025 were adapted from books***. And if 2026 is anything to go by, that’s not going to change any time soon.
Which brings me to my favourite “romance reader meets investor” crossover: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Not only is it the publisher behind Harry Potter, but also the publisher riding the wave of Sarah J. Maas and the viral A Court of Thorns and Roses series that has basically taken over the internet. Alexandra Jackson, manager of the Rathbone UK Opportunities fund, has held Bloomsbury for years. A reminder that sometimes investing themes appear in places you wouldn’t immediately expect.
And maybe that’s the whole point. Good investing ideas often start with paying attention to how people spend their time, money and attention. Right now? Millions of people are obsessing over fictional universes, binge-watching adaptations and building communities around stories they love.
So yes, this article may have started because I wanted an excuse to discuss Off Campus at work. But weirdly, it turned into a reminder that investing opportunities can show up in places we interact with every single day, even somewhere between the Kindle app and a Prime Video subscription.
If you’re sitting there thinking “I love the idea of streaming as a theme, but I don’t fancy picking Netflix vs Amazon vs Disney” you’re not alone. Talk about pressure to pick the right horse!
This is exactly where funds come in. Rather than betting on a single winner, you can get exposure to the broader ecosystem: streaming platforms, enablers, advertisers, cloud infrastructure and even the brands behind the content itself.
Here are a few ways to do exactly that:
Baillie Gifford American
Equity
A long-term growth fund with significant exposure to US tech and media platforms. This is where you’ll often find names like Netflix and Amazon sitting alongside other high-growth disruptors such as Cloudflare^. It’s less about streaming specifically and more about owning the companies reshaping global consumer behaviour.
Morgan Stanley Global Brands
Equity
This is a “quality compounders” fund, as the name suggests; think strong global brands with pricing power. Streaming fits here as part of a wider theme of intellectual property, recurring revenue and consumer engagement. They currently have Netflix and Alphabet in their top holdings^.
Comgest Growth America
Equity
A more quality-growth, bottom-up approach to US equities. Exposure to large-cap innovators means you’ll often find media, tech and platform businesses linked to the streaming ecosystem, even if it’s not explicitly “streaming”. They currently hold Amazon, Alphabet and Apple^.
T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity
Equity
A diversified US growth strategy that tends to capture the big structural winners, including the platforms and infrastructure powering streaming and digital entertainment. Top holdings include Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Nvidia^^.
This article is provided for information only. The views of the author and any people quoted are their own and do not constitute financial advice. The content is not intended to be a personal recommendation to buy or sell any fund or trust, or to adopt a particular investment strategy. However, the knowledge that professional analysts have analysed a fund or trust in depth before assigning them a rating can be a valuable additional filter for anyone looking to make their own decisions.
Past performance is not a reliable guide to future returns. Market and exchange-rate movements may cause the value of investments to go down as well as up. Yields will fluctuate and so income from investments is variable and not guaranteed. You may not get back the amount originally invested. Tax treatment depends of your individual circumstances and may be subject to change in the future. If you are unsure about the suitability of any investment you should seek professional advice.
Whilst FundCalibre provides product information, guidance and fund research we cannot know which of these products or funds, if any, are suitable for your particular circumstances and must leave that judgement to you. Before you make any investment decision, make sure you’re comfortable and fully understand the risks. Further information can be found on Elite Rated funds by simply clicking on the name highlighted in the article.
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