Are there too many streaming services?

When Netflix first launched it’s streaming service it was revolutionary; there was a large variety of content available to stream at any time for a reasonable price. Following it’s massive success, many other companies realised that streaming services are the way forward for entertainment which led to similar platforms like Amazon Prime video, Hulu and NowTV which all saw varying degrees of success.  

Now there’s so many different streaming services with the content spread so thin, that it seems to defeat the original purpose of platforms like Netflix; it feels like it’s going backwards as instead of having a large variety of  content in one place for a reasonable price there are now many streaming services with their own exclusive libraries of shows and movies. In this blog post I'll go through what some of the different services offer, how successful they've been so far and whether or not they're worth buying.

Disney Plus

The main draw for Disney plus currently is Star Wars spin-off "The Mandolorian" which is apparently the most “In demand” show in the US according to Forbes, but outside of that I don’t think there’s really enough shows to justify the price, which is why Disney plus subscriptions have been dropping recently.  However, that is likely to change when the second season of the Mandalorian launches this month. Many of the Disney plus releases slated for 2020 have been pushed back due to that worldwide pandemic that caused some minor issues in Hollywood and while the coronavirus caused production on many shows to have to shut down, Disney Plus (and other streaming platforms) unsurprisingly benefited from everyone being stuck inside their homes this year: the number of Disney+ subscribers rose to 50 million during lockdown which is an extremely impressive number considering the service launched less than a year ago. Disney+ seems to generally appeal more towards a younger audience currently which isn’t a bad thing, if anything it helps to separate it from the other services. Disney plus will only continue to grow as more of their highly anticipated shows and movies are released in 2021. 

Amazon Prime Video

In addition to the discounts and next day delivery that amazon prime members have access to, they also have prime video which is one of the best streaming services available. While Amazon prime has a great selection of shows such as "The boys" and  "Man in the high castle" , the best part of Amazon prime is it's movie collection, there are many movies available for free such as "The Gentleman", "Knives out" and "1917". While Amazon Prime has a massive library not all of the movies are free, but I don't see this as a bad thing as Amazons catalogue of free movies is good enough to justify the price of the membership and there are often great discounts on the movies that aren't free, I rented "The Prestige" : a Christopher Nolan movie that follows two rivaling magicians as they try to upstage one another, Oscar winner "Parasite" was also available for the same price.

Britbox

Much of the content on Britbox was previously available on Netflix UK or BBC iPlayer, now shows like Line of duty (BBC) and Happy Valley are being removed from Netflix UK to encourage people to buy Britbox, because of this, it doesn't really feel like it's adding anything new as much as it's offering a platform to watch some of the highest rated UK shows that had previously aired on BBC and ITV. Currently the biggest exclusive on BritBox is Spitting Image, a satirical puppet show that first aired in 1984 that mainly parodies recent events relating to celebrities and politicians. I’ve never seen the show but I’m not surprised that the revived show is not being received as well as the original as there’s not exactly a shortage of political satire on the internet in 2020 and by the time the episodes air everything has probably already been said about the situation the show is covering (That's not to say there no audience for political sketch shows as American comedy: "Saturday night live" has seen some of it's highest ratings in years on the recent episodes leading up to the 2020 election). Britbox seems to be aiming for a slightly older demographic as it allows people to re-watch episodes of older shows like Doctor Who and Only Fools and Horses and I think these classic shows are a bigger draw than any new content on Britbox.

Apple TV+

Apple TV+ has many critically acclaimed exclusive shows with great casts but it feels like nobody actually watches them. They do have a large number of subscribers but that’s due to the fact that every new iPhone comes with a year free trial, because of this it's hard to. Even with access to a free trial many people including myself haven't ever made use of Apple TV+ but the platform only launched less than a year ago and it's likely to become more popular in 2021 as more original series are released.

YouTube Premium

The biggest draw for YouTube premium was Karate Kid Sequel: Cobra Kai but that just got picked up by Netflix for a third season. I couldn’t think of what else was on YouTube Premium so I looked up their 10 most popular shows/Movies, the second biggest show after Kobra Kai is a series called “Wayne” but that just got cancelled, the third biggest YouTube premium show, “Origin”, got cancelled after 1 series. Some other shows/movies on the list include “The thinning” (IMDb 5/10) and it’s sequel “The Thinning: New world Order” (IMDb 3.9/10), "Escape the Night" (5/10 imdb) and "Step up" which is apparently good but Youtube cancelled that too. 

Hulu

I, like everyone else, don’t know what shows are on Hulu. I didn't know what Hulu was but it’s often mentioned along side other platforms that I am familiar with like Netflix and Amazon video, it turns out the platform isn't available in the UK but apparently it's not doing very well in America and it will probably remain that way as it struggles to compete with the newer services.

In my opinion Netflix still stands out as the platform that offers the widest range of quality content for a reasonable price whereas the other services seem to appeal to specific audiences. Amazon prime also has its own benefits that separate it from Netflix along with many high quality shows and movies.