My Fave Five: Streaming Services

In such a digital age, streaming services have taken over our lives in a multitude of ways. One way this started was with the commonality of watching shows and movies for both entertainment and pass time.

A few years ago while TV programs and movie production were on the rise, there weren't really many options for how you could watch all these new shows.

Then the explosion of streaming services began. There are now more than 200 forms of streaming services, so with that, here are my top five streaming services.

Netflix

First up the classic Netflix. The face of streaming services for most people, including myself.

Not only does Netflix have one of the largest licensing contracts with different people in order to essentially “rent” content from creators and content companies to provide to their users.

This has allowed customers like myself to watch my favorites whenever and wherever, such as "27 Dresses,""Flash" and "The Good Place."

On top of this, Netflix has found success in creating their own shows and movies, referred to as “Netflix Originals” with some even becoming my all time favorites as well.

Netflix is also ad free making it a major hit for paying customers, over some other streaming services and cable itself.

While maybe not the biggest, one of the most unique things this service has done is create interactive TV shows.

That's right, shows where you as the viewer help decide the outcome of the series.

Shows such as "Triviaverse," "Unwind Your Mind" and "Cat Burglar" are all designed to react to your decisions giving Netflix users more for their money.

Disney+

Bippity boppity boo, the magic that went into the creation of Disney+ is truly one of my favorites, and has just kept my childhood alive and singing.

Disney has been making shows and movies that have raised children across the world, and made memories that last a lifetime.

From this in their growing company, they hopped on the streaming train and made a service solely for their Disney creations.

Disney+ offers content dating all the way back to 1937, with the original "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" fast forwarding to future content that has yet to even be released, and will only be released solely on Disney Plus to bring in more fans who want to view the newest of the new.

Hulu

Next is Hulu, which in current day is now a content hub within Disney+, but still considered its own streaming service; however this can be seen as a positive to some since they do bundles with both Disney+ itself as well as one including ESPN+.

This streaming service is yet another prime name streaming platform (not to be confused by the streaming service Prime Video listed next on this list).

Hulu is loved for its comparatively cheap prices to its competition, but with that has its faults.

One of its largest and most undeniable faults is its ad usage. That’s right ads.

This makes hulu the cross over child of services such as Netflix where you can pick what you watch and when you watch it mixed with original cable that used ads in between shows and usage to help make profit.

I have also personally found Hulu to be less stingy on sharing accounts with your friends and family compared to some services, which is certainly helpful.

Prime Video

Now as mentioned above, we have Prime Video.

This is one that I feel tends to fall off of most peoples radar unless they have Amazon Prime despite Amazon itself success world wide.

Long story short if you have Amazon Prime, you should be using Prime Video, or at least have it downloaded as an option.

Why?

Because, with an Amazon Prime membership comes not only with quicker and free shipping, but Prime Video as well.

If you are reading this and have Amazon Prime, but have never watched something on Prime Video then you most likely have an account just sitting there waiting to be activated.

As for the service itself, Prime includes some of the most unique, but incredible shows and movies you’ve watched in a while such as "The Summer I Turned Pretty" or the entire "Hunger Games" series.

Despite its fun and different selection of content, there are certain things within you may find yourself needing to purchase.

Prime Video gives you a bar on the bottom of the app with one of the choices being “store,” in this section you will find even more shows, movies, spotting events, etc. However, as the section mentions this is a store and you will be needing to purchase these items.

It does offer the option of rent or buy though, so if it's an all time favorite such as the "Barbie" movie you can purchase it, and always have it at the press of a button.

Peacock

Wrapping up this list is Peacock- no not the bird.

This is a service that kind of just seemed to have floated around, some people used it most didn’t and no one really cared.

That was until sports got involved.

In 2020, Peacock streamed its first exclusive Premier League match in partnership with NBC Sports.

Then they live streamed the 2020 AFC Wild Card game between the Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers, making this Peacock's first live NFL game.

When fans of these teams or sports in general including myself, we all began checking to make sure we knew our Peacock logins, or how much it would be to create an account.

This partnership to privately stream certain events, especially ones as large as NFL games brought in an entire news audience, demographic and just overall viewership.

This service also carries my all time favorite show, "Quantum Leap," so that is definitely a large plus to me, my family, and any time travel lovers.

Bronwyn Liber is a first-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact her, email brl5354@psu.edu.