Media and Marketing for Consumer Brands

The Rom-Com Comeback Is Reading Like a Disney Turnaround Memo, and CMOs Should Be Taking Notes

by Editorial Team

One number for the next board meeting: The number of original scripted series produced in the United States fell 14% in 2023, the first drop in a decade, according to FX Networks research widely reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Deadline. The correction that followed is now paying off in the numbers boards actually track: Disney's direct-to-consumer streaming business posted an 88% profit jump to $582 million in its most recent quarter, and Netflix's two biggest romantic comedies of 2026 alone have drawn more than 135 million combined views. For a retail or consumer brand chief executive, the lesson is direct: concentrating investment in fewer, stronger bets delivers outsized returns on content and product alike. Disney's streaming turnaround and the romantic comedy's 2026 comeback are two case studies in the same playbook.

Netflix's "What We Watched" report for the first half of 2026 shows two romantic comedies leading the platform's slate: "People We Meet on Vacation," the Emily Henry adaptation starring Emily Bader and Tom Blyth, debuted with 17.2 million views in its opening weekend and finished the half with 77.7 million total views, according to Netflix's own Tudum report, Variety and Deadline. "Office Romance," starring Jennifer Lopez and Brett Goldstein, opened with nearly 21 million views and closed the half at 58.4 million, per the same Netflix report, Yahoo Entertainment and TheWrap.

Both titles arrived after several years in which streaming platforms expanded their libraries rapidly, spreading engagement across a very wide slate. FX's annual scripted-series tally, the industry's most-cited measure of that period, found the total number of new scripted shows fell to 516 in 2023, a 14% decline widely reported across trade press, marking the first contraction after a decade of expansion. What replaced volume was a narrower slate built around recognizable authors, bankable stars, and format discipline, and 2026's romantic comedy results are the clearest payoff yet.

For a marketing leader, the pattern offers a rare side-by-side: an entertainment category and a media conglomerate that both focused output on purpose and then watched their return on investment rise.

The Industry-Wide Correction

Streaming's programming boom peaked in 2022, and FX chief John Landgraf's yearly scripted-series count, the number industry executives use as their own benchmark, showed the first decline in original series since the format's rise, a trend Axios, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter each covered as the formal end of "Peak TV." The years that followed saw studios and platforms reallocate budgets away from volume and toward a smaller number of titles built to travel: known intellectual property, established authors, and stars with existing audiences. Emily Henry's built-in readership and Jennifer Lopez's built-in fan base did the audience-acquisition work that a generic, low-budget original once had to do alone.

The marketing lesson: A crowded content calendar and a crowded product calendar solve the same problem the same way, by concentrating budget behind the releases most likely to travel on their own reputation rather than spreading it evenly across everything on the schedule.

Disney's Own Version of the Memo

Disney lived this correction earlier and more publicly than most. In 2023, then-CEO Bob Iger told investors at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference that the company would sharpen its content pipeline, memorably summarizing the new direction as "spending less on what we make, and making less," according to Movieguide's reporting on the remarks. Disney streamlined its television and film slate and focused its franchise output on the titles with the strongest returns.

That reallocation is now showing up on Disney's income statement under a different chief executive. In its second quarter of fiscal 2026, the first full quarterly report under new CEO Josh D'Amaro, Disney posted $25.2 billion in revenue, up 7% year over year and ahead of Wall Street's $24.9 billion estimate, while its combined Disney+ and Hulu streaming business grew profit 88% to $582 million, according to CNBC, TheWrap and Variety. A strategy built to concentrate marketing budget and production spend behind fewer titles outlasted the leadership change that started it, and the results arrived on schedule.

The marketing lesson: A budget reallocation built around a clear principle, invest deeper in fewer bets, compounds returns over multiple years and multiple leaders, which is what makes it a durable strategy.

The Rom-Com Payoff

Romance content followed the identical arc inside a shorter window. Rather than commissioning a wide slate of low-cost original romances, Netflix concentrated its 2026 romance investment behind a handful of titles carrying their own pre-built audiences: a bestselling novelist's fanbase for "People We Meet on Vacation" and a global movie star's fanbase for "Office Romance." Both opened at number one on Netflix's film chart and kept climbing, evidence that the audience arrived for the built-in reputation and stayed for the execution.

The marketing lesson: Pairing a concentrated release calendar with a built-in audience, whether that audience follows an author, a star, or a brand, turns a single launch into sustained engagement instead of a one-week spike.

The Broader Takeaway

The metrics behind both turnarounds, cost per title against return per title, are the same ones a chief marketing officer already reports to the board: marketing efficiency, conversion per campaign, and brand strategy discipline across a portfolio. Disney and the romance genre both proved that a focused release calendar is a reallocation toward strength, and the businesses that made that reallocation deliberately are the ones now posting the growth numbers. That logic travels directly into retail and CPG, where a concentrated product line, a tighter promotional calendar, or a narrower SKU count built around the strongest performers can produce the same compounding return that Disney and Netflix are now reporting to their own shareholders.

Building a portfolio strategy around fewer, stronger bets takes real measurement discipline. RSL builds brand strategy, customer experience programs, and measurement frameworks around exactly this kind of portfolio decision, so let's talk about where your own calendar could be doing more with less.

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References

  1. The Hollywood Reporter, "Peak TV Is Officially Over: FX Tallies 14 Percent Drop in Scripted Series for 2023," https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/scripted-originals-fall-14-percent-2023-fx-tally-1235821248/
  2. Variety, "The End of Peak TV: 516 Original Scripted Series Aired in 2023, a 14% Dip, FX's John Landgraf Says," https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/peak-tv-tally-original-scripted-series-aired-2023-1235902886/
  3. Deadline, "Peak TV Is Over: Number Of Original Series Falls For First Time In A Decade, Per FX," https://deadline.com/2024/02/peak-tv-over-original-series-drop-2023-1235693814/
  4. Axios, "'Peak TV' reaches its end as scripted shows fall for first time since 2020," https://www.axios.com/2024/02/12/peak-tv-decline-scripted-shows-low
  5. Movieguide, "Quality Over Quantity: Disney CEO Bob Iger Reveals Plan To Cut Costs," https://www.movieguide.org/news-articles/quality-over-quantity-disney-ceo-bob-iger-reveals-plan-to-cut-costs.html
  6. CNBC, "Disney pops 7% after streaming, parks drive revenue beat in first report under CEO Josh D'Amaro," https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/06/disney-dis-earnings-q2-2026.html
  7. TheWrap, "Disney Streaming, Theme Parks Boost Revenue to $25.2 Billion," https://www.thewrap.com/industry-news/business/disney-earnings-q2-2026/
  8. Variety, "Disney Q2 2026 Revenue Rises 7% in Earnings Beat, Streaming Income Up 88% to $582 Million," https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/disney-q2-2026-earnings-josh-damaro-streaming-income-1236738974/
  9. Netflix (About Netflix), "What We Watched the First Half of 2026," https://about.netflix.com/en/news/what-we-watched-the-first-half-of-2026
  10. Netflix Tudum, "5 Most-Watched Netflix Romance Movies and Shows in the First Half of 2026," https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/most-watched-romance-h1-2026
  11. Variety, "Emily Henry's 'People We Meet on Vacation' Lands 17.2 Million Views Over Netflix Opening Weekend," https://variety.com/2026/film/news/people-we-meet-on-vacation-ratings-netflix-movie-1236630279/
  12. Deadline, "'His & Hers' Tops Netflix TV; 'People We Meet On Vacation' Leads Film," https://deadline.com/2026/01/his-hers-people-we-meet-vacation-premiere-ratings-netflix-1236681779/
  13. TheWrap, "Jennifer Lopez's 'Office Romance' Tops Netflix Movie Charts With Nearly 21 Million Views in Opening Weekend," https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/tv-shows/office-romance-netflix-movie-charts-ratings/
  14. Yahoo Entertainment, "Jennifer Lopez's 'Office Romance' Tops Netflix Movie Charts With Nearly 21 Million Views in Opening Weekend," https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/movies/articles/jennifer-lopez-office-romance-tops-190024646.html

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