After a year of cost-cutting and extended production shutdowns that left spending below expectations, content spending at major media and technology companies is expected to rebound in 2024.

“Rebound” is, of course, a relative term. According to a new forecast from Morgan Stanley, two of the legacy media studios — Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global — will fail to surpass their 2022 spending levels this year, while other companies will see spending grow much more slowly than pre-Great Streaming Correction rates.

For example, Disney is slowing spending growth and limiting the explosive spending seen after the launch of Disney+. The Mouse House has already announced plans to cut content spending to $25 billion for fiscal 2024 (from November 2023 to October 2024, which partly explains the discrepancy in Morgan Stanley’s calendar-year forecast), down from $27 billion in fiscal 2023 and about $30 billion in 2022.

More importantly, content cost dynamics are also undergoing dramatic changes that will only become truly visible next year.