6. Watching Paid Streaming Video Services
In this chapter, you learn about the most popular paid streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, CBS All Access, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, and Peacock—and how to watch them.
Watching Other Paid Streaming Services
Streaming Internet video is the way to cut the cable/satellite cord and reduce your monthly entertainment expenditures. With an Internet connection and a streaming media player or smart TV, you’re ready to stream all sorts of television programs and movies over the Internet.
Many of the most popular streaming video services today are paid services. That is, you need to sign up for them and pay a monthly subscription fee. These services include such well-known brands as Hulu and Netflix, newer services such as HBO Max and Peacock, and lesser-known but still popular services such as Acorn TV and The Criterion Channel.
Watching Amazon Prime Video
Amazon offers a streaming video service called Amazon Prime Video. You can watch it on just about any streaming media player, as well as your computer, phone, or tablet. Not surprisingly, it plays very well on Amazon Fire TV devices.
Prime Video offers free streaming of thousands of movies, TV series, and original programming. Unlike competing services, Amazon, an online retailer, also sells or rents streaming versions of tens of thousands more titles. When you browse Prime Video, look for those titles or categories labeled “Included with Prime” or that have a “Prime” banner on the thumbnail—that’s the free content included with your Prime Video subscription. You have to pay separately for anything not labeled as Prime content. Still, the combination of free subscription streaming and paid/rental titles gives Amazon the most content of any online service.
What’s Playing?
What kind of content can you find on Amazon Prime Video? Amazon offers a selection of new and older movies and TV series as part of its Prime Video subscription. This selection is weighted toward newer movies and shows (as is the case with most streaming video services), although many older movies and TV series are available for rental or purchase through the Amazon online store. You can browse the for-purchase content from within the Amazon Prime Video app, which is convenient.
Amazon also offers a variety of original programming, which it calls Prime Originals. Prime Original series include Bosch, The Boys, Fleabag, Good Omens, The Man in the High Castle, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Modern Love, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, and Upload. Prime Original movies include Cold War, Late Night, The Lost City of Z, Manchester by the Sea, The Report, Seberg, and The Vast of Night.
In addition, Amazon offers content from other providers as part of (or in addition to) its Prime Video subscription. This additional content is offered as Prime Video Channels, and includes Acorn TV, Boomerang, BritBox, Broadway HD, CBS All Access, HBO, IMDb TV, Showtime, Starz, and similar streaming services. Some channels are included free with your Prime Video subscription; others (typically premium cable channels) incur an additional fee of anywhere from $4.99 to $14.99 USD per month.
Ever-Changing Content
The content available on all streaming media services is constantly changing. New titles are added to every service on a monthly basis, and older titles are periodically retired.
What It Costs
Amazon Prime Video is an extension of Amazon’s Prime service, which gives you free two-day shipping on selected Amazon purchases. If you’re a Prime member, your subscription to Amazon Prime Video is included free. (Prime membership costs $119 USD per year.) If you’re not a Prime member, you can subscribe to only Prime Video for $8.99 USD per month (which comes to $107.88 USD per year). Given the minimal difference in price, most people are better off getting the whole Prime membership (with Prime Video thrown in free) than paying for Prime Video separately.
Tech Specs
The majority of Amazon content is in 1080p HD with Dolby Digital 5.1-channel surround sound. Some Prime Video content—primarily newer movies and original programming—is in 4K with HDR. Dolby Atmos sound is less common, with only a few programs offering this option. Unlike some other streaming services, Amazon does not charge extra for you to view its 4K content. You can view Prime Video programming on up to three screens at a time.
X-Ray
Amazon is unique in that it offers additional information about much of its programming. Amazon’s X-Ray feature offers cast and character information, behind-the-scenes photos and stories, bonus video content, and more while you’re watching a program. To access X-Ray, press the up button on your device’s remote control while the video is playing.
Watching Apple TV+
Apple didn’t want to miss out on the streaming video show, so in November 2019, it launched its own streaming video service. Dubbed Apple+, the service was introduced with much fanfare, but it’s turned out to be a tad underwhelming; it doesn’t have a ton of original content (yet), and much of what it has hasn’t received glowing reviews. Still, even though it’s not at the same level as Hulu or Netflix, Apple TV+ is still worth considering.
What’s Playing?
Apple+ may not offer as much original programming as other streaming services, but Apple has thrown a lot of money at the project and attracted a lot of big-name talent. Original shows include Amazing Stories (from Steven Spielberg), Defending Jacob (starring Chris Evans), For All Mankind (about an alternate history of the space race), The Morning Show (with Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carell, and Reese Witherspoon), Oprah’s Book Club (as in Oprah Winfrey), and See (starring Jason Momoa). At present, the service doesn’t have any non-original programming.
What It Costs
A subscription to Apple TV+ costs $4.99 USD per month, which makes it one of the lower-cost pay services out there.
Tech Specs
All original programming (and Apple TV+ is all original programming) is offered in 4K resolution with Dolby Vision HDR. Many programs also feature Dolby Atmos sound. You can view Apple TV+ programming on up to three devices at once.
Watching CBS All Access
CBS was the first major U.S. broadcast network to launch a premium streaming service. It’s notable for being the home for all things Star Trek, including the current Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard series.
What’s Playing?
Every show that’s in the current CBS primetime lineup is available on CBS All Access, which makes it a good place to catch up on your favorite network programming, from Criminal Minds and NCIS to Mom and Survivor. You can also watch the latest episodes of Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Late Late Show with James Corden, as well as 60 Minutes, The Price Is Right, and The Talk.
More notably, CBS All Access is the exclusive home (in the United States, anyway) for Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, and the upcoming Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. All the other Star Trek series are here, as well, including the original series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Star Trek: Voyager.
CBS All Access offers other original series, including The Good Fight, No Activity, One Dollar, Strange Angel, Jordan Peele’s reboot of The Twilight Zone, and Why Women Kill. The service also is adding a variety of movies from Paramount, which is a subsidiary or ViacomCBS.
In addition, you can use the CBS All Access app to watch your local CBS station live in real time, and you can watch feeds from CBS Sports HQ and the otherwise little-known CBSN news network.
Star Trek in Canada
Due to some sort of weird licensing deal, Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard are not available on CBS All Access in Canada. Instead, you can find both shows on Canada’s Crave streaming service and CTV Sci-Fi cable channel.
What It Costs
CBS offers two All Access plans. The Limited Commercials plan (which, as the name implies, allows you to suffer through what it deems a limited number of advertisements) runs $5.99 USD per month or $59.99 USD per year. If you’d rather excise advertisements entirely, go with the No Commercials plan for $9.99 USD per month or $99.99 USD per year.
Tech Specs
CBS All Access is not the most technically advanced service available today. There’s no 4K or Dolby Atmos. Programming is 1080p HD max, with most shows in plain old-fashioned stereo; only a few programs feature Dolby Digital 5.1 surround. CBS lets you view All Access programming on only two devices at a time.
Watching Disney+
The Disney+ service launched in November 2019 and quickly rose to the top tier of streaming video services. That’s probably due to its wealth of quality programming from the Disney, Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars, and 20th Century Fox vaults—all of which Disney owns. This makes Disney+ a great streaming service for any family with young children and teenagers, as well as older viewers.
What’s Playing?
Disney+ is the destination service for children of all ages. Programming includes the complete library of Disney films, from Sleeping Beauty and Tangled to Mary Poppins and Pirates of the Caribbean; Disney and Disney Jr. cartoons and TV shows, including Lizzie McGuire, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and PJ Masks; Marvel movies and TV shows, including all the Avengers movies, both Guardians of the Galaxy movies, and the Agent Carter TV show; Pixar movies, including Cars, The Incredibles, Onward, and all the Toy Story movies; and all the Star Wars movies and related TV shows, including the new Mandalorian show.
There’s also The Simpsons, tons of programming from National Geographic, and a growing selection of classic and newer movies from 20th Century Fox, including Avatar and The Sound of Music.
That barely scratches the surface of what you can find on Disney+, which explains its immediate popularity. You can watch it for months on end and still find more to view.
What It Costs
A Disney+ subscription costs $6.99 USD per month or $69.99 USD per year. The company also offers a bundle of Disney+, Hulu Basic, and ESPN+ for $12.99 per month, which is a really good deal if you watch just any two of those services.
Tech Specs
Most Disney+ programming is streamed at 4K resolution with Dolby Vision HDR. (Look for the HD logo in the program listings.) Sound is typically Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 surround, with some programs in Dolby Atmos. You can view Disney+ programming on up to four devices simultaneously.
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Big Media Conglomerates
You might not know it, but we are currently in the middle of a streaming video war. This war is exacerbated by the fact that a handful of big companies own the majority of the available content—and they each have a streaming service.
Let’s start with AT&T, who you may know as a mobile phone provider or the company that owns DirecTV. AT&T also happens to own WarnerMedia, which in turn owns HBO, Turner, and Warner Bros. Turner owns the Boomerang, Cartoon Network, Cinemax, CNN, TBS, TNT, and Turner Classic Movie (TCM) networks. Warner Bros. owns DC Entertainment (that’s DC Comics to you and me) and a huge film library that includes the Harry Potter franchise and Looney Tunes cartoons. All of these properties are consolidated online via the HBO Max streaming video service.
Comcast, the cable company, happens to be the owner of NBCUniversal, which in turn owns the Cozi, E!, MSNBC, NBC, Telemundo, USA Network, and SyFy networks, as well as Universal Pictures. (It also owns the Sky Group in Europe.) It consolidates all of its programming via the Peacock streaming video service.
Then there’s Disney, which is a lot more than just Mickey Mouse. Disney owns all the Disney movies and TV shows on the Disney and Disney Jr. networks, of course. It also owns (in alphabetical order) ABC, A&E, ESPN, The History Channel, Lifetime, Lucasfilm (including the Star Wars franchise), Marvel, Pixar, and Touchstone Pictures. That’s a lot of really popular content. Plus Disney also owns the Hulu streaming service, which competes, sort of kind of, with the Disney+ service, which consolidates all of those properties.
Finally, there’s ViacomCBS, which is a little smaller than its mass media competitors but still plenty big. ViacomCBS owns the BET, CBS, Comedy Central, The CW, MTV, and Nickelodeon networks, along with Paramount Pictures—which owns the Star Trek TV and movie franchises. All of these properties are consolidated in the CBS All Access streaming service.
Up until recently, properties from all of these companies were licensed to other streaming services, primarily Hulu and Netflix. However, with the big companies starting their own streaming services, they’re pulling their content away from the other services to be exclusive to their own. That means no more Marvel or Star War movies on Netflix, as a big example.
It also means that if you like content from all these megacompanies, you can’t find it all in one place anymore. To get it all, you have to subscribe to multiple services, which can get a little pricey.
Watching HBO Max
HBO Max launched late May 2020, offering content from all the properties owned by parent company AT&T. These properties include Cartoon Network, CNN, The CW, DC Comics, HBO, New Line Cinema, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), and the Warner Bros. film studio. Despite the HBO name, HBO Max is designed to be a full-service streaming service, much like Netflix, with a mix of existing and original programming.
Amazon and Roku
At launch, HBO Max was not available on Amazon Fire TV and Roku devices, due to AT&T’s inability to come to contractual terms with those big companies. It’s likely they’ll come to an agreement sooner rather than later, however—hopefully by the time you’re reading this book!
What’s Playing?
HBO Max programming includes everything from TCM’s classic movies to The CW’s popular superhero TV shows, with a whole lot in between—including children’s programming from Sesame Workshop. Content includes superhero movies such as Aquaman, Joker, Zach Snyder’s Justice League, and all the many Batman and Superman movies; all the movies in the Lord of the Rings and Matrix series; and TV series like Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and The West Wing. HBO Max also offers classic films such as Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Singin’ in the Rain, and The Wizard of Oz, as well as newer films like Crazy Rich Asians and A Star is Born. You can also find new and classic animated programming from Cartoon Network, Hanna-Barbera, and Warner Bros. (Looney Tunes).
Original programming on HBO Max includes all prior HBO originals, such as Barry, Game of Thrones, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Veep, Watchmen, and Westworld. You’ll also find a slew of planned new programs, including Dune: The Sisterhood, a remake of Gossip Girl, Green Lantern, Love Life (with Anna Kendrick), Strange Adventures, and Tokyo Vice.
In addition, HBO Max paid some big bucks to get exclusive streaming rights to the uber-popular shows Big Bang Theory and Friends. (The latter is the most-watched show of all time on streaming video.) The service also has the rights to Sesame Street and more than 700 hours of programming from the BBC (including the new Doctor Who).
What It Costs
An HBO Max monthly subscription runs $14.99 USD, although you may get a discount if you also subscribe to HBO through your cable provider. You can stream HBO Max on up to three devices at the same time.
Tech Specs
HBO Max streams in 1080p HD with Dolby Digital 5.1-channel surround sound. It has plans to add 4K, HDR, and Dolby Vision, but none of these options were available as of summer 2020.
Watching Hulu
Hulu is a subscription service that offers streaming of movies, TV series, and original programming from a variety of sources. Hulu started out as a joint venture between AT&T, Comcast, and The Walt Disney Company, but Disney now owns 100 percent.
At its inception, Hulu was conceived as a place to watch recent episodes of current TV series—kind of a “catch-up” service. It still offers access to recent TV shows but has added all manner of other content, including older TV series, movies, and original programming.
What’s Playing?
Like its competitors, Hulu offers thousands of television series, movies, and original programs. Although it has branched out from its original mission, Hulu still offers a significant number of current broadcast and cable/satellite series, with a focus on each show’s most recent episodes. This makes Hulu a great place to catch up on your recent television viewing, and for some people Hulu could replace cable or satellite as a source for live viewing. (You typically don’t have live access to these shows, but can watch the latest episodes a day or so after their initial airing.)
Hulu also offers a decent selection of vintage television series, which makes it a good choice for fans of classic TV. The service also offers a number of current and older movies, but not nearly as many as you find on Amazon or Netflix.
In terms of original programming, Hulu is starting to make a name for itself. You’ll find a number of well-regarded original series, including Castle Rock, Casual, Devs, Future Man, The Handmaid’s Tale, High Fidelity, Letterkenny, The Looming Tower, Runaways, and Shrill. Hulu has not yet delved into original movies, instead focusing its efforts on these and other series.
What It Costs
If you’re watching on a Smart TV or streaming media player, Hulu offers two plans, with and (sort of) without commercials. The basic Hulu plan runs $5.99 USD per month and inserts commercials into the programs you watch. If you want to minimize the number of commercials you see, sign up for the $11.99 USD No Ads plan—but know that you’ll still see commercials on some programs, but fewer of them.
Hulu + Live TV
Hulu also offers a live streaming service for broadcast and cable/satellite channels, called Hulu + Live TV, for an additional monthly cost. Learn more about this service in Chapter 8, “Watching Live Streaming Video Services.”
Tech Specs
Most Hulu programming is broadcast in 1080p HD with stereo sound. Some programming, primarily Hulu Originals, are in 4K. The default sound quality is plain old stereo, although select programs are in Dolby Digital 5.1-channel surround sound. Hulu content can be viewed on only two devices simultaneously.
Watching Netflix
Netflix is the most popular streaming service today, with more than 182 million subscribers worldwide. It’s the granddaddy of streaming video services, and the default service offered across a variety of devices.
Netflix DVD Service
Netflix started out as a delivery service for DVD rentals. It still offers this service, although online streaming has become the dominant part of the company’s business. If you still watch DVDs and Blu-rays, Netflix’s DVD Plan may be of interest; prices run from $7.99 to $14.99 USD per month. Learn more at dvd.netflix.com.
What’s Playing?
In terms of programming, Netflix is a fairly well-rounded service. It still offers a good selection of movies (but not nearly as many as it used to) and also provides a good number of recent and (some) older TV series.
Unfortunately, Netflix’s selection of classic and foreign films has diminished over the years, but it’s still a good source for popular movies from the past couple of decades. That said, it’s not the first service to turn to for classic TV shows from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
Netflix is the leader, however, in original programming, both series and movies. Its original series are well known and well respected, and include Black Mirror, The Crown, Dead to Me, Fuller House, Grace and Frankie, Nailed It!, Orange is the New Black, Ozark, Rust Valley Restorers, Space Force, Stranger Things, Tiger King, and The Umbrella Academy. Original Netflix movies include Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, The Last Days of American Crime, Marriage Story, Murder Mystery, and Roma.
What It Costs
Netflix lets you include multiple users on your account; it’s not uncommon for children (even grown-up children!) to share their parents’ or grandparents’ account. You can also stream Netflix to more than one device simultaneously—depending on the plan you sign up for.
Netflix offers three plans—Basic, Standard, and Premium. The Basic plan runs $8.99 USD per month, streams in standard resolution, and lets you watch on just one screen at a time. The Standard Plan, for $12.99 USD per month, streams in 1080p HD and lets you watch on two screens at once. The Premium plan runs $15.99, offers 4K streaming (where available), and lets you watch on four screens simultaneously.
Table 6.1 details what you get with each of Netflix’s U.S. plans.
Table 6.1 Comparing Netflix’s Subscription Plans
Basic |
Standard |
Premium |
|
|---|---|---|---|
Monthly price (USD) |
$8.99 |
$12.99 |
$15.99 |
Number of screens you can watch at the same time |
1 |
2 |
4 |
Maximum resolution |
Standard definition |
1080p HD |
4K Ultra HD |
HDR |
No |
No |
Yes |
Dolby Digital surround sound |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Dolby Atmos |
No |
No |
Yes |
Tech Specs
Which plan you sign up for also determines whether you can receive 4K Ultra HD content. Netflix’s Basic plan is in standard definition, the Standard plan delivers 1080p HD with Dolby Digital surround sound, and the Premium plan gives you 4K video with both HDR10 and Dolby Vision HDR. Know, however, that aside from original programming, there’s not a lot of 4K content available; look for the Ultra HD icon for 4K programming.
Similar differences exist in the three plans regarding sound quality. The Basic and Standard plans have Dolby Digital 5.1-channel surround, and the Premium Plan adds Dolby Atmos.
As previously noted, you can view Netflix content on up to four screen simultaneously, depending on your subscription plan.
Watching Peacock
Comcast launched the Peacock streaming service nationwide in July 2020. Peacock offers primarily programming from the NBC networks and Universal Pictures—and not much else.
What’s Playing?
Currently, the best way to think of Peacock is NBC on the Web. Peacock offers current and past NBC programs, including all the late-night shows (The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and Saturday Night Live) and everything from NBC prime time. That includes past and present favorites such as 30 Rock, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Cheers, Everybody Loves Raymond, Friday Night Lights, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Superstore, Will and Grace, and the Chicago and Law and Order franchises. There are also a handful of original series, including Girls5Eva (produced by Tina Fey) and Intelligence (starring David Schwimmer from Friends), along with remakes of Battlestar Galactica, Punky Brewster, and Saved by the Bell.
Peacock also offers news from NBC News and a variety of NBC Sports programming. A variety of films from DreamWorks Animation and Universal Pictures are also available.
What It Costs
Unlike all the other streaming services discussed in this chapter, Peacock offers a free version. Peacock Free is, as the name implies, completely free. (It’s ad-supported.) If you want more content (twice as much, actually), then you can pay for a Premium subscription at $4.99 USD per month. (Peacock Premium is free to Comcast and Cox cable subscribers.) To eliminate all ads, sign up for the ad-free Peacock Premium version for $9.99 USD per month.
Tech Specs
Peacock Free offers 720p and 1080p HD, which is great for the price. Peacock Premium, however, offers some programs in 4K resolution with HDR, although not on all streaming devices. Although most programs are streamed in glorious stereo sound, some content is available in Dolby Digital 5.1-channel surround.
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How Many Services Do You Need?
If you’ve been following along, you now know that there are eight—count ’em eight—big-time paid streaming video services. (Plus a few minor ones that I’ll get to in a moment.) If you subscribe to all eight, you could spend up to $85 USD per month—in addition to whatever you’re paying each month for Internet service. That may be more than you used to spend for cable or satellite service!
This begs the question: Do you need to subscribe to every service that’s available?
The answer is, probably not. Do you really need both Hulu and Netflix? Both Disney+ and HBO Max? Do even need Apple TV+ or Peacock at all?
At some point, you just can’t afford to subscribe to everything. You need to make some hard choices as to which streaming services are worth your money every month. If there are only one or two programs you watch on a given service, do you really need that subscription?
In my household, we’ve had to make some tough decisions. We get Amazon Prime Video because I pay for Amazon Prime; if it weren’t essentially free because of that subscription, I’m not sure it would be worth it for the two shows (The Boys and Canada’s Corner Gas) we occasionally watch. Netflix is a necessity; we watch a lot of different shows on that service. Hulu is less so, especially when we get done watching all the episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Letterkenny we’re currently bingeing. We have CBS All Access because of Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard, but are those shows worth a separate subscription? Disney+ has become more necessary than Netflix because of all the Marvel and Star Wars movies, plus the Disney Jr. programming for my preschool grandson. HBO Max is tempting because of Friends (my middle-school granddaughter just discovered it and is addicted) and all the classic movies from the TCM library. Peacock, however, offers little we can’t get elsewhere and Apple TV+ truly has nothing we want to watch.
The thing is, we simply can’t afford subscriptions to all these services. In my household, at least, Apple TV+ and Peacock are easy services to cut, and CBS All Access and Hulu will probably suffer the same fate when we’ve finished binge-watching the few shows we like. I’d probably drop Amazon Prime Video, too, if I weren’t getting it free with Amazon Prime.
That still leaves Disney+, HBO Max, and Netflix to pay for each month, at least for my family. You’ll have to make the same hard choices for your household.
Watching Other Paid Streaming Services
The eight streaming video services previous discussed are the eight biggest, but they’re far from the only services to choose from. There are a number of other subscription services that offer more niche programming. (There are also a handful of services that offer free content, supported by advertising, that I discuss in Chapter 7, “Watching Free Streaming Video Services.”)
Acorn TV
I’ll start with an examination of British TV, as delivered by two separate but similar streaming services to the U.S. market: Acorn TV and BritBox. They both offer new and classic shows from across the pond, but each has a unique program library.
Acorn TV features classic and current programming from a variety of British networks, including BBC Worldwide, Channel 4, and ITV. It also offers a number of original series. The most popular shows include Agatha Raisin, Blood, Delicious, Detectorists, Deadwater Fell, Doc Martin, Foyle’s War, Janet King, Keeping Faith, Loch Ness, Midsomer Murders, Mystery Road, No Offence, Partners in Crime, Seachange, and Vera.
Acorn TV is more than just British television, however. The service also offers some of the best television programming from Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and various European countries, including A Place to Call Home, Bang, The Brokenwood Mysteries, Finding Joy, Jack Taylor, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Mystery Road, Murdoch Mysteries, and Pitching In.
A subscription to Acorn TV runs $5.99 USD per month. An annual subscription is available for $59.99 USD.
BritBox
The second streaming service for British television programming is BritBox, which offers a variety of current and classic shows from the BBC and ITV.
BritBox offers comedies, dramas, mysteries, and more from the UK. You may be familiar with many of these shows, including classic comedies such as A Bit of Frye & Laurie, Absolutely Fabulous, Are You Being Served?, As Time Goes By, Blackadder, Cold Feet, Dirk Gently, Fawlty Towers, Last of the Summer Wine, Red Dwarf, Yes Minister, and the original British version of The Office; dramas such as Brideshead Revisited, Broken, Coronation Street, EastEnders, Emmerdale, Kavanaugh Q.C., Life on Mars, Line of Duty, Poldark, Pride and Prejudice, and Upstairs Downstairs; and mysteries such as A Touch of Frost, Campion, Cracker, Inspector Morse, The Last Detective, Miss Marple, and Prime Suspect.
(My wife and I really like John Cleese’s comedy, Hold the Sunset, about two retired neighbors trying to start a new life together, with complications.)
In addition, BritBox lets you watch Good Morning Britain and other current BBC programming. It’s also the home for all classic (pre-revival) episodes of Doctor Who, which alone might make BritBox worth subscribing to.
A BritBox subscription runs a little more than one for Acorn TV, $6.99 USD per month. If you opt for a one-year subscription, it’s just $69.99 USD.
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Acorn TV Versus Britbox
If you’re a fan of British television, which service should you subscribe to, Acorn TV or BritBox? The answer is, maybe both.
First, know that there is very little overlap between the two services. You won’t find many shows that appear on both Acorn TV and BritBox. To get the full range of British television programming, you need access to both services.
For casual viewers, BritBox, with its direct BBC connection, offers the more familiar shows. BritBox is where you’ll find Absolutely Fabulous and Are You Being Served?, EastEnders and Upstairs Downstairs, Inspector Morse and Prime Suspect. Plus classic Doctor Who and current BBC programming, of course.
Acorn TV is more for diehard Anglophiles, with shows that may be lesser known to U.S. viewers. (It’s also not limited to UK content; it’s a great place to catch programming from Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand.) The programming on Acorn TV is top-notch, much of it classic, but it hasn’t been as widely available here in the States.
So if you want the best-known British shows, go with BritBox. If you want to delve deeper into UK television or expand into programming from other countries, add Acorn TV to the mix. There’s lots of good stuff on both services; together, the two subscriptions cost about the same as a single Netflix subscription.
BroadwayHD
If you’re a theater fan, check out BroadwayHD. This streaming service offers a mix of recorded Broadway plays and musicals, movies based on Broadway shows, and concerts by famous Broadway performers. Plus lots of behind-the-scenes stuff, of course.
A subscription to BroadwayHD runs $8.99 USD per month, or $99.99 USD per year.
The Criterion Channel
If you’re a true movie lover, you probably know all about the Criterion Collection, well-curated DVDs and Blu-rays of the most influential classic and foreign films in the history of cinema. The Criterion Channel is the streaming service for the Criterion Collection, with many of the same films accompanied by the same superb extras.
The Criterion Channel is where you’ll find films by legendary directors such as Bergman, Buñel, Fellini, Godard, Kurosawa, Malle, Ozu, Scorsese, Tati, and Truffaut. If these names mean nothing to you, skip this service. But if you’re a film aficionado, The Criterion Channel is a must-have service. It costs $10.99 per month or $99.99 per year.
DC Universe
DC Universe is the home to all manner of television series and movies featuring DC superheroes, in both live-action and animated form. You’ll find classic series animated such as Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League, Super Friends, Superman: The Animated Series, and Young Justice; classic TV series like Adventures of Superman, Constantine, the 1990s The Flash, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and Wonder Woman; live action movies like Batman, Supergirl, and Superman; and various animated movies, including Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, Batman: Year One, The Death of Superman, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, and Justice League: The New Frontier. There are also several original superhero series, such as Doom Patrol, Harley Quinn, Stargirl, and Titans.
Unique to DC Universe are comic books, in digital format. The service offers a rotating selection of DC comics that you can read on your TV screen. (Although, to be honest, they’re easier to read on a computer or tablet than on a TV.)
There’s not a single Marvel movie or series to be found, but if you’re a DC fan, this is the streaming service for you. A DC Universe subscription runs $7.99 USD per month or $74.99 USD per year.
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Paid Streaming Services in Canada and the UK
The streaming landscape looks a bit different outside the United States, due primarily to different licensing deals in different countries.
The big streaming video services in Canada include Amazon Prime Video ($7.99 CAN per month); Apple TV+ ($5.99 CAN per month); BritBox ($8.99 CAN per month); CBS All Access ($5.99 CAN per month); Crave ($9.99 CAN per month), which is home to the Crave original comedy Letterkenny; Disney+ ($8.99 CAN per month); and Netflix ($9.99 to $16.99 CAN per month). HBO Max isn’t available in Canada; its programming is primarily available on Crave. There’s no Hulu or Peacock in Canada, either.
In the UK, the major streaming services are Amazon Prime Video (£5.99 per month); Apple TV+ (£4.99 per month); BritBox (£5.99 per month); Disney+ (£5.99 per month); Netflix (£5.99 to £11.99 per month); and Now TV (at least £8.99 per month), with different packages of Sky programming. CBS All Access, HBO Max, Hulu, and Peacock are not available in the UK.