2024 is shaping up to be the year of the streaming bundle
The atmosphere at the Disney Bundle Celebrating National Streaming Day at The Row in Los Angeles on May 19, 2022.

This year proved to be yet another tough one for pay TV, as more people cut the cable cord.

But it wasn't exactly kind to streaming services, either, as platforms dealt with subscriber declines, slumping ad revenue and stubborn losses while Netflix continued to assert its dominance.

Still, the age of the cable bundle is giving way to the era of a new kind of bundle that could give both streamers and cable providers a path forward. Media executives told CNBC this month that 2024 could finally be the year that media companies get serious about the bundle.

"The Charter-Disney deal was a sign of the times," said Macquarie analyst Tim Nollen.

Disney and cable giant Charter Communications battled over fees during the lead-up to the National Football League season, with Charter CEO Chris Winfrey saying it wasn't "a typical carriage dispute." Disney-owned channels, including ESPN, ceased broadcast for millions of customers of Charter's Spectrum service for nearly two weeks.

The blackout ended in September, hours before "Monday Night Football" was set to kick off on ESPN, with a deal that gave Spectrum TV Select Plus subscribers access to the ad-supported tier of Disney+, as well as ESPN+.

Similar arrangements could well emerge in 2024, given the broad subscriber bases and positive revenue implications for pay TV and broadband companies, Nollen added. Liberty Media Chairman and cable TV pioneer John Malone, who's also on the board of Warner Bros. Discovery, earlier this year predicted more integration of streaming services into cable bundles.

Mergers and acquisitions would also lead to more bundling. Paramount CEO Bob Bakish and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav met last week to discuss a possible merger of the two companies, although talks are in early stages.

Despite the demand for a streaming bundle, top players have historically been apprehensive to make such a deal. Companies would have to navigate the calculus of average revenue per user, or ARPU, and subscriber growth when offering their services at a discount.