Recently, Vox did a fantastic deep dive into the different viewing options, but here’s a quick topline:
PITCH: Enormous, constantly-growing amount of domestic and international content including original programming as well as older movies and TV shows for all ages and areas of interest.
NOTABLE: Bojack Horseman, Stranger Things, Orange Is The New Black, Tiger King, Ozark, 13 Reasons Why, Mindhunter, The Irishman, Marriage Story, Roma
COST: $8.99 to $15.99 per month
PITCH: Probably the best streaming service for TV shows (it was started by NBC and Fox) with some original content and older movies.
NOTABLE: The Handmaid’s Tale, Ramy, Mrs. America, Minding the Gap, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the FX catalog
COST: $5.99 to $11.99 per month. Hulu also offers bundles for as much as $60.99 than include live TV.
PITCH: Huge collection of award-winning films, TV programs, and original content that can be purchased a la carte, or in many cases, available for FREE with an Amazon Prime subscription.
NOTABLE: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Fleabag, Catastrophe, Mozart In The Jungle, Mr. Robot, Spongebob Squarepants
COST: $8.99 to $12.99 per month
PITCH: Everything HBO plus some of the most popular TV shows and older movies in history.
NOTABLE: The Sopranos, The Wire, Game of Thrones, Sex and the City, Barry, Watchmen, South Park, Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Rick & Morty plus Turner Classic Movies, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, DC, Sesame Street and more.
COST: $14.99 per month
PITCH: Everything Disney plus Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, National Geographic, and more.
NOTABLE: Star Wars, The Avengers, Black Panther, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Simpsons, The Lion King, Frozen, The Clone Wars, The Mandalorian
COST: $6.99 per month ($18.99 per month bundled with Hulu and ESPN+)
PITCH: Everything NBC plus programming from Universal and Dreamworks Animation including movies, sports, and 15,000 hours of TV programming.
NOTABLE: Parks and Recreation, SNL, America’s Got Talent, Law & Order, This Is Us, Cheers, Everybody Loves Raymond, Downton Abbey, Will & Grace, The Olympics
COST: $4.99 per month
PITCH: Everything CBS including archival programming and NFL Football.
NOTABLE: Survivor, Big Brother, Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, I Love Lucy, Perry Mason, The Good Fight, Evil, The Grammy Awards, The Tony Awards, NFL Football
COST: $5.99 to $9.99 per month
PITCH: 85+ top channels of entertainment, news, live sports and more. Recording without storage limits and 6 accounts included.
NOTABLE: Big 4 major networks, sports networks like ESPN, FS1, MLB Network, Golf Channel, SEC Network, AMC, BET, Bravo, Comedy Central, E!, Food Network, Turner Stations
COST: $64.99 per month
Add up all but YouTubeTV and for less than $62 per month (less than half of some cable packages), you can enjoy everything Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, Disney+, AppleTV+, Peacock and CBS All Access have to offer which is more content than you could watch in two lifetimes. Add in Quibi for just $4.99 a month (for those times when you really need content in chunks under 10 minutes) and all you have to figure out is how to watch local news and live sports. Fortunately, there are countless resources to help and it’s a lot easier than you’d think.
As for what all this will do to the advertising landscape? That’s another blog for another day