Robert Jackman

The battle of the streamers: which is the best value subscription?

  • From Spectator Life
Succession, (Image: Shutterstock)

Thinking of purchasing a new streaming service this autumn, or rejigging your existing subscriptions? As well as crunching the numbers on costs, we’ve compared the upcoming content, so you can get the best bang for your buck.

Netflix (£9.99 per month)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htqXL94Rza4

Still very much the granddaddy of the streaming services, Netflix continues to reliably do the numbers when it comes to subscriptions – with a recent surge into the ‘silver surfer’ (that is, viewers over 65) market, although its overall market share has reduced significantly over the last year with the arrival of competitors like Disney Plus and the growth of Amazon Prime.

The streaming giant has just about worked through its pandemic drought, with big releases this autumn including the latest series of Money Heist, another outing of Sex Education, and Chris O’Dowd opposite Melissa McCarthy in original film The Starling. Meanwhile, their exclusive deal to the entire back catalogue of Seinfeld will see 180 episodes of the legendary sitcom land in October.

At £9.99 for a ‘standard’ subscription, Netflix remains the priciest of the streaming services – although, given the vast size of its back catalogue, they’d probably (rightly) insist that it isn’t always a like-for-like comparison. And anyway, someone has to pay for their acquisition of the entire Roald Dahl estate.

Amazon Prime (£79 per year – or £7.99 per month)

Though reliable data in this field can be difficult to come by, some estimates – based on Ofcom numbers – suggest that around 10 million households currently subscribe to Amazon Prime: making it a serious player in the streaming market (either that, or there are a lot of people addicted to next-day delivery).

Fresh from their triumphant broadcast of the US Open final, Prime launches into the autumn with the film adaptation of Everybody’s Talking about Jamie, as well as a new musical version of Cinderella, starring Camila Cabello (warning: it’s produced by James Corden – whose traffic-stopping promotional stunt for the film managed to make motorway irritants Insulate Britain look charming by comparison).

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