The Primetimer Guide to Streaming TV: The Painless Way to Find Your Next Great Watch on Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Apple TV+, Peacock, Paramount+ and Other Popular Streamers

Foreword by Tim Brooks

Television programming has evolved greatly in its 70-plus years of wide availability in the United States, and so has the documentation of that programming. What’s on? has been a question viewers have been asking from the start, even in the 1940s when they might have had only one or two channels available, and those were on only a few hours per day.

Now it seems like we have — what? — more TV programs than stars in the sky or grains of sand on the beach. Perhaps it is time for a curated guide, a compilation of what is best and where it can be found in this complicated era of streaming TV.

Oddly enough, our grandparents had the same problem, in a somewhat different way. For them television shows were an addition to the hundreds of network radio shows they were already familiar with; how could they find out what was on the new medium and where to find it?

To serve this need TV Guide was launched as a local magazine in New York in 1948. It merged with similar magazines in other markets to become national in 1953, and by the 1960s it was the most widely circulated publication in the country, with 19 million subscribers. It dealt only with current TV, which was appropriate for the time since so few shows were rerun (most early shows were broadcast live and not rerun at all; later filmed shows were rerun only selectively, usually by local stations late at night).

In the mid-1970s when Earle Marsh and I approached publishers about a compendium of all TV shows, both past and present, we were met with a wall of rejection. No one cares about old TV, we were told, and for current ones just look at the listings. But viewers did care about old TV, the shows they remembered, as well as current favorites. That became blindingly clear when NBC aired the first major clip show, its fiftieth anniversary special in 1976 with hundreds of clips from older TV shows. It was an enormous ratings hit and CBS and ABC quickly followed with their own anniversary shows, plus assorted retrospective specials.

When our Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows finally came out in 1979 it was an immediate best seller. The Complete Directory went through nine updated editions from 1979 to 2007, documenting in a convenient format the flood of new and older shows that were now becoming available on cable TV as well as on videotape and later DVDs (remember them?). The latest edition, in 2007, was 1,832 pages long!

But what was a flood of programming has now become a tsunami, with the advent of streaming services like Netflix and Hulu (and many others) and their vast array of shows both new and old. It is time for someone to give us a guide to the best of this huge new wave of programming and Aaron Barnhart is the ideal person to do that. A friend of the Complete Directory for many years, he has been writing knowledgeably about television’s evolution for three decades. With The Primetimer Guide to Streaming TV he provides a roadmap to this newest source of programming that is spreading rapidly across the country.

Welcome to the newest chapter in the evolution of television, with this handy guide to the best of what it offers.

Tim Brooks, a former television executive, is a noted historian of radio, television and the recording industry. He is the co-author (with Earle Marsh) of The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows.

Editor’s Note

I thank Tim Brooks for his kind words in the Foreword, but I must set the record straight: This isn’t my book. At least, it’s not entirely my book. The Primetimer Guide to Streaming TV would not have happened without the contributions of many others whose names are listed below and on the following pages.

In 2018, as I was returning to the world of professional TV watching, my friend Tim Goodman — then the chief television critic for The Hollywood Reporter — wrote a series of columns arguing for a different approach to our line of work. The endless stream of content was stressing out viewers, Tim observed, and in this environment critics should be acting more as curators, imposing order on chaos, hand-selecting things to watch based on what was worthwhile and appropriate for various tastes and time constraints. So let me begin with a tip of the hat to Tim for his advocacy of an idea that has informed my work at Primetimer and is at the heart of this ambitious guide you are reading now.

A number of friends read drafts of this book and gave valuable feedback: Sue Trowbridge, Carol Powers, Gavin Fritton, Erin Clermont, Susan Cox and Dave Hokansen have my grateful thanks. Howard Mortman, Katherine Pongracz, Michael Schneider and Jason Snell were generous with insights. My weekly radio interrogations from Chip Franklin kept me on my toes.

Support, both financial and emotional, is essential to any successful book project. I must thank two people above all for their support of The Primetimer Guide to Streaming TV. The first is my partner in this venture, Jed Rosenzweig, the publisher of Primetimer, who brought me out of retirement and made writing about television fun again. Had it not been for Jed’s constant encouragement, I never would have attempted to surf this 100–foot wave.

Attempting a project of this magnitude is one thing, finishing it is another. And there is simply no way I would have been able to complete this project without Diane Eickhoff, my wife and companion in all things intellectual, emotional and spiritual. She helped me through my transition back to the world of criticism and she lived with this book for its entire gestation. Diane likes to say that she could wake me from a deep slumber and within moments get me talking about almost any subject (knowledgeably or not). Yet when it comes to describing my love for her and the debt that I owe her, words fail me. I have dedicated this book to Diane.

Aaron Barnhart

January 2022

Acknowledgements

Behind this book is a large database of television shows and movies that managing editors Mark Blankenship, Brianna Westervelt, Jed Rosenzweig and I built from scratch. The editing skills of these three were essential to getting this guide done, and the finished product is immeasurably better because of them.

I am indebted to these Primetimer editors and contributors whose analysis and reviews were the basis for many of the entries in Part II: Tara Ariano, Sarah D. Bunting, Andy Dehnart, Jon Hein, Joe Reid, Claire Spellberg Lustig, Mike Attebery, Alex Welch, Andy Hunsaker, Chris Billig, Chris Feil, Emma Fraser, Jade Budowski, Josh Zyber, Jessica Liese, Kelly Kessler, Kevin O’Keeffe, LaToya Ferguson, Lauren Garafano, Naomi Elias, Omar Gallaga, Stephen Hladik, Thomas J. West III and the incomparable Norman Weiss. In addition, Carol Powers and Una Morera made valuable contributions to this guide as it was being compiled.

The line between television critics and critically-minded viewers has been blurring since I began writing as a fan in the early 1990s. So it was important to me that The Primetimer Guide include the voices of viewers who appreciate good TV, recognize mediocre TV and love discussing the difference. Part II, therefore, also includes insights from the following contributors to our Primetimer Forums (forums.primetimer.com). Their comments appear in the text wherever you see the balloons (⊥).

Mariah Abell, Marie Acosta, Matt Adams, Alicia Arnold, Turner Arrington, Karin Aultman, Charlotte Bednar, Erik Bhatnagar, BKing, D. Buchanan, Christina Burns, Dr. Karlisa Callwood, Johnna Childs, Joanna Cornish, Elizabeth Crossno, Brett Davies, Jennifer Dohan, Susan Evans, Pat Freedman, Margo G., Michele Gallagher, Carol Gibbs, Laura Meredith Gibson, Diana Hancock, Jason Harbaugh, Bob Heer;

Marny Heit, Patricia Hurd, Dana Hurleigh, iRarelyWatchTV36, Tanya Izzo, Ed J., Scott Josephson, justmehere, Brenna Kingsbury, Jayne Kleissler, Miriam Kushel, Amy M, Cody M., Marylee, Jennifer Mathews, Cynthia McLendon, Angus McLeod, Julianne Messer, MissLucas, Judith Morse, Erin O’Hara-Meyers, Susan E. Myers, Shannon O’Donnell, Elena Omard, Melinda Ott, Maria Papadopoulos, Candace Allen Poe, Sara Power;

Marcie Q., Timothy Q., Corinne R, Barb Roman, Jodi Ross, Audra Rouse, Steven Samiljan, scrb, Donna Shrout, Jeremy Smith, Michelle Smith, Tara Sproles, Melinda Stevenson, Brendan Stewart, Alison Stuart, Joy Thomas, Mike Tripicco, Tinita Wheaton, Whimsy, Nichole White, Debra Whitmore, Larry Williams, Lisa Winston Wilentz, D.C. Wilson, Jo Woerner, Ed Wohlford, Leslie Wooten and Cynthia Z.

Primetimer community manager Michelle Silverstormm St John and the moderators of the Primetimer Forums have kept track of a mind-boggling number of shows over the years, all while helping to keep the conversations enlightened and civil. My thanks to Michelle and our current moderators, listed here under the screen names by which they are known to the forums community:

AgentRXS, aquarian1, Athena, bettername2come, Black Knight, CheshireCat, CountryGirl, Cranberry, deaja, Door County Cherry, dubbel zout, EmilSkoda, Emma Snyder, festivus, halgia, helenamonster, jenrising, jewel21, JTMacc99, kariyaki, Khaleesi, Lady Calypso, nodorothyparker, OtterMommy, Pallas, paulvdb, peachmangosteen, PrincessPurrsALot, ProfCrash, raven, Sakura12, saoirse, Scarlett45, scarynikki12, secnarf, sempervivum, shantown, starri, statsgirl, Superclam, tessaray, TexasGal, The Crazed Spruce, theatremouse, thewhiteowl, txhorns79, WendyCR72 and Whimsy.

— AB

Part I. The Cord Has Been Cut

A History of Streaming TV

Early days to YouTube (1990s-2006)

Using the Internet to transmit video to the public is as old an idea as the Internet itself. For most of that time, however, consumer bandwidth speeds were so slow that even video downloads were excruciating, to say nothing of on-demand streaming. Nonetheless, as the World Wide Web sputtered to life in the 1990s, fueled by anemic 56K modems, several well-funded ventures attempted to stream alternative TV channels on the web.

The best-known of these was Pseudo, fronted by a tech entrepreneur named Josh Harris who had all kinds of ideas, such as equipping his apartment with dozens of cameras and offering a 24/7 web stream of everything (yes, everything) that he and his girlfriend did there. The content of these early streaming channels was terrible, as was the viewing experience. After the dot-com stock bubble popped in 2000, interest in streaming video waned.

It revived in 2005, thanks to the wider availability of broadband and the arrival of YouTube, which quickly became the leading hub for user-generated video content. Television networks made some of their content available online, but users had to go to the individual networks’ websites, and the experience was less than satisfactory. YouTube, though, was easy to use with a powerful search engine (Google acquired it in 2006), and soon millions of users had discovered that it was a great place to watch pirated versions of TV shows, both current and classic.

Hulu and Netflix (2007-2014)

The networks were eager to avoid repeating the missteps of the music industry during the heyday of Napster. Disney made shows like Lost and Desperate Housewives available on iTunes in 2005, but that was for downloading only. In 2007 a group of investors led by NBC launched Hulu, a centralized site for viewing network TV shows. Disney signed on as a partner in 2009 and eventually gained a majority stake in Hulu. CBS went its own way with CBS All Access, now Paramount+.

Meanwhile, Big Tech was also wading into the video stream. Executives at the DVD rental service Netflix developed an interface so that customers could watch TV shows and movies on demand instead of waiting for discs to arrive in the mail. Netflix’s project had originally begun on the hardware side with a dedicated streaming player. When the company decided to focus on building an app, the executive in charge of the hardware effort left Netflix and started Roku. In 2009 Apple released an open video standard for its revolutionary iPhone, allowing at least the possibility of streaming TV shows on wired and wi-fi networks. In time cellular bandwidth caught up with home network speeds. The streaming revolution was ready to be televised.

By 2010 Netflix was streaming more video than it was shipping on DVD. Demand for the convenient new service grew rapidly, as Netflix went from 12 million subscribers in 2009 to 24 million in 2011 to 54 million in 2014. Hulu, its closest competitor, grew from 1 million to 6 million subscribers during this time.

Research uncovered a noticeable Netflix effect for series like Breaking Bad, which doubled its audience on the AMC cable channel after previous seasons began streaming. But this begged the question: Why have cable at all? Streaming offered a seemingly endless buffet of video. And if a network show was popular, wouldn’t it wind up on streaming eventually? These were questions that viewers fed up with high cable and satellite bills increasingly asked. By 2014 nearly 10 million U.S. households had cut the cord, with subscribers to streaming channels being the group most likely to cancel their cable service.

Though Netflix kept pouring money into content acquisitions, its executives realized that the studios behind Friends, The Office and other hit shows would eventually claw those properties back and put them on their own competitive streaming platforms. Survival for Netflix, in the long term, meant developing a catalog of its own hit shows and movies.

Netflix did not approach this strategy timidly, outbidding prestige channels AMC and HBO for the right to produce a political thriller, House of Cards. It was the first of many prestige series to make their appearance as Netflix Originals. A revival of Arrested Development followed, and in 2014 Netflix won its first Emmy for best comedy series with Orange Is the New Black. The streaming giant also signed Adam Sandler, Marvel Studios and LucasFilm to movie deals and produced broad-appeal sitcoms like Fuller House, Grace and Frankie and The Ranch.

Peak TV (2015-2019)

At the studios that produced TV shows, streaming dollars were an accelerant thrown on an already overheated system. By 2015 there were nearly 400 original scripted series on television, up from 211 scripted series in 2010. No one even tried to count the number of unscripted shows. One network executive borrowed a term from the oil industry and it quickly caught on in Hollywood: Peak TV, a term suggestive of over-production, a supply of television that could not possibly have enough demand to meet it.

But that prediction proved premature. Netflix grew its content budget by one-third every year starting in 2015, expanded to 190 countries and set its sights on becoming a producer of content without historical precedent. By 2018 the company was spending, and making, more money on television than any network — it out-grossed the entire domestic movie box office that year. Among the brand names signed to Netflix development deals were Spike Lee, Ryan Murphy, Shonda Rhimes, Barack and Michelle Obama, David Letterman, Kenya Barris and Chelsea Handler. The joke was that you weren’t a Hollywood insider unless you had a deal with Netflix.

Meanwhile consumers were continuing to cord-cut, in addition to the growing number of millennials who were cord-nevers. Amazon and Google brought out their own inexpensive streaming players to compete with Roku. HBO made its HBO GO streaming service available for the first time to non-cable subscribers. In 2017 Hulu and Google rolled out bundles of cable and broadcast channels delivered over the Internet. The humble TV antenna, once nearly extinct in urban America, began reappearing in millions of windows and rooftops.

In time the traditional networks began responding to Netflix like the existential threat that it was. Disney bought Fox, took majority control of Hulu and launched Disney+. WarnerMedia combined content from all of its cable channels and film studios to launch HBO Max. Viacom and CBS, which split up in 2006, got back together to launch Paramount+. Reality TV’s big tent Discovery Networks launched Discovery+.

Big Tech was busy during this period as well. Amazon beefed up its spending on Prime Video and, more importantly, promoted it more aggressively to the millions of Amazon Prime members who weren’t watching Prime Video even though it was free to them. Apple launched Apple TV+ in 2019 with a small library of prestige programs like The Morning Show. Netflix signed up its 200 millionth subscriber and became the biggest producer of TV content in dozens of countries.

Lockdown and critical mass (2020-2021)

Along with stationary bikes and home delivery, the business of Streaming TV flourished during the COVID-19 lockdown. In the second quarter of 2020 alone, Netflix added 26 million subscribers worldwide — and all of them, it seems, were at home watching Tiger King. Hulu soared from 28.5 million U.S. subscriptions to 36.6 million during the pandemic.

What to put before this captive audience proved a challenge as time passed and studio sets remained shuttered by the virus. Netflix had stockpiled months of content and could gleefully boast of having new movies every week. Peacock loaded up on live soccer telecasts from England and scored the streaming rights to Yellowstone, cable’s biggest show. Disney moved the theatrical releases for Hamilton and Pixar’s Soul to Disney+. WarnerMedia announced that every theatrical release from its Warner Bros film division in 2020 would simultaneously drop on HBO Max.

Magnolia Network, a cable channel featuring HGTV superstars Chip and Joanna Gaines, was supposed to launch in summer 2020, but the pandemic took a sledgehammer to that plan. Instead, Magnolia content was launched on Discovery+, the new streaming platform from HGTV’s owner. The cart and the horse have definitely been reversed, Chip Gaines admitted.

Indeed, with the arrival of Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, Paramount+ and Discovery+ it could fairly be said that streaming was the one carting cable around. Including Apple TV+, there were now nine well-financed general entertainment streaming channels and dozens more boutique streamers putting tens of thousands of original, network and legacy shows and films at users’ fingertips.

With the profusion of streaming platforms, the demand for fresh content grew to unprecedented levels. According to FX Content Research, a total of 559 scripted shows were produced for domestic cable, broadcast and streaming in 2021, in addition to thousands of news, reality and nonfiction shows. After a decade of dizzying growth there was little indication that the market had reached Peak TV.

Such variety and volume was liberating and — like everything else in the pandemic year — exhausting as well. I just finished Game of Thrones and now I’m left with nothing to watch. I have HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, wrote one overwhelmed viewer on Facebook. Media outlets that recommended several bingeable shows every week were being implored by binged-out readers to suggest shows that could be watched in an hour or less.

In some ways old television habits hadn’t changed. Short on time and open to suggestions (even from algorithms), viewers sought out water-cooler shows. Top-10 lists published by Netflix, Nielsen and Reelgood confirmed this: Only a few titles out of the scores of new releases every month generated any sort of buzz. Back at the streaming platforms, researchers were slicing and dicing the audience using data from billions of streams, figuring out with unprecedented speed and accuracy whether a show was clicking with its intended audience.

And here was another Netflix effect at work: The streaming giant often dropped all new episodes of a show at once, allowing it to come up with a verdict on the entire season within a matter of days. When The Irregulars dropped on Netflix in 2021, one reviewer described it as Sherlock Holmes meets Stranger Things meets Bridgerton. It seemed tailor-made — or rather, algorithm-made — for a large portion of the Netflix audience. Sure enough, The Irregulars shot to the top of Netflix’s list of Top 10 most-watched titles. Within days, however, data showed a steep decline in interest as viewers worked their way through the episodes. The Irregulars was cancelled shortly thereafter.

When vaccines arrived and people began venturing out to restaurants and movie theaters, industry forecasters predicted that cash-strapped consumers would drop their streaming subscriptions. Instead, they held onto streaming and continued cutting the cord. One year after the lockdown began, just 58 percent of U.S. households had traditional cable or satellite, down from 88 percent nine years earlier. For the first time, more Americans reported watching Streaming TV than traditional Pay TV in their homes.

The lockdown also saw the comeback for a viewing behavior that had fallen out of fashion in an on-demand world — channel-surfing. Platforms like PlutoTV, Tubi and Peacock offered stacks of live channels, which were actually just 24/7 loops of themed programming, arranged in a familiar cable-style grid that viewers could mindlessly click through. Instead of choosing something off the menu, viewers could now select a Play Something button on Netflix, and the algorithm would serve up a show based on their viewing history.

Streaming TV now and beyond (2022–)

The rush to Streaming TV has exceeded industry expectations. In the most extreme case, Disney revised its initial forecast of 40 million Disney+ subscribers by 2024 to 240 million subscribers. I think by the end of the decade, everyone is going to be watching TV via streaming, said Anthony Wood, the man who left Netflix to create Roku.

Powered by torrents of revenue, the streamers’ programming budgets continue to expand, especially as Hollywood hurries to scale up and meet the challenge of Netflix and Amazon. Disney will spend $33 billion companywide, with most of that spent on content for Disney+, Hulu and its streaming sports asset ESPN+. WarnerMedia has plans to merge with Discovery, while ViacomCBS and NBCUniversal are spending billions in an existential push to establish their brands on streaming platforms.

Meanwhile, Big Tech continues to expand in the streaming space. Netflix will spend $20 billion in 2022. Amazon will spend $12 billion on Prime Video and IMDb TV, its lean-back streamer. And then there’s Apple, which has billions of dollars already invested in Apple TV+, with production budgets that rival those of Netflix and Amazon and a CEO, Tim Cook, who was plainly thrilled by the 2021 Emmy Awards triumph for the Apple TV+ comedy Ted Lasso. Surely the world’s largest corporation aspires to more than streaming’s best-funded boutique platform.

Streaming TV seems poised for even more growth, but as always the viewers will determine if that happens. In particular, the industry must deal with two long-term challenges that their customers are facing. One challenge is economic: keeping monthly fees competitive, since customers can easily drop services that aren’t good value. The other challenge is efficient: helping viewers find the shows they want to watch without so much frustration. As part of the solution to both problems, we introduce The Primetimer Guide to Streaming TV.

The Primetimer Guide to Cutting the Cord

Not too long ago, your local cable company was one of the biggest cash cows in town. And no wonder: If you weren’t being aggressively upsold a Cinemax subscription you didn’t want, you were discovering new charges on your monthly bill. (Our favorite: paying rent on a cable modem you could find on eBay for $20.) Some of us tried to save money by attaching satellite dishes to the outside of our homes, only to discover that satellite TV had technical limitations and even worse customer service than cable (how is that even possible?). Such were the aggravations we put up with in order to conveniently watch our favorite programs, live sports and news.

Today there’s an alternative. You can cut the cord — sever the umbilical link to the cable or satellite company you use now — enjoy a crazy amount of high-quality entertainment and, in most cases, pay a lot less than you currently shell out for a Pay TV subscription. It’s all possible thanks to the Streaming TV revolution described in the previous chapter. Streaming today is more than Netflix and Hulu: It’s also Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock and other new streaming platforms that together have vastly expanded the universe of on-demand video content. Tens of millions of cable and satellite customers have cut the cord and gone all-in with Streaming TV.

All of the major television and film studios have launched streaming platforms, offering their content directly to consumers without a cable or satellite middleman. (See Your Favorite Network Shows Are Probably on Streaming, page 10.) All you need in order to access this video extravaganza is a reasonably-priced Internet connection and some lightweight gear that you can install yourself without waiting at home between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. This guide will show you how.

By making the move to Streaming TV, you can watch the on-demand shows in this guide. Unlike cable or satellite, streaming platforms were built from the ground up to give you what you want to watch, when you want and where you want to watch it — on big screens, medium-sized screens or on that phone you carry around. With the monthly fee for a typical streaming platform costing less than what you used to pay for Cinemax (even with that sweet deal), you could save hundreds of dollars a year on home entertainment.

So if today is the perfect day to cut the cord, why haven’t you done it yet? Hey, we get it: The hassle is real. Cable and satellite companies make it exceedingly hard to quit them, and the mere thought of replacing our home TV setup is enough to give many of us a headache. If it’s not broken, we reason, why fix it? But the old way is broken. Consumers have been clamoring for greater control over their viewing choices and Streaming TV has delivered. They wanted better things to watch, too, and the streaming platforms have substantially upped the game in that regard as well.

This short guide will walk you step by step through the one-time process of replacing your cable or satellite provider with a Streaming TV setup. We’ve included some common scenarios which may be helpful. If you’ve already cut the cord, you might still want to read through this section, as the information has been updated for 2022.

Step 1: Your List

You will find cord-cutting a satisfying experience if you do it with as little compromise as possible. Even if you choose one of the more expensive streaming options listed here, you’ll very likely save money compared with your current setup and more importantly, you’ll be happy.

To ensure a smooth transition, it’s good to make a list. Write down all the shows you currently watch, any shows on your wishlist (based on recommendations from The Primetimer Guide, friends and family) and any cable channels you like to watch live.

Now look up your favorite shows and find out if and where they stream. One way is simply to look them up in Part II of this guide. Or you can type the show’s title into a search engine like Reelgood, JustWatch or Watchworthy, which link to the libraries of dozens of streaming platforms. If a show is streaming on multiple platforms, compare to see which episodes are available on each.

Why Shows Don’t Stream

You may come across some shows that aren’t streaming. Here are the most common types:

Syndicated shows like Jeopardy!: Syndication was created to provide revenue for local TV stations, and streaming would undermine that income stream. Some syndicated talent may jump to streaming, like Judy Sheindlin did in 2021 when she shut down production on her long-running Judge Judy show and launched a nearly identical one, Judy Justice, on IMDb TV. But don’t bet on Jeopardy! moving to streaming any time soon. The solution is either to put up an antenna or subscribe to a Cable TV Replacement service that includes local TV stations.

Cable news: CNN, Fox and MSNBC have streaming platforms either announced or launched, but with separate programming that doesn’t duplicate what’s on their cable channels. If you want to keep watching your favorite CNN, MSNBC or Fox News hosts, you’ll need a Cable TV Replacement service. If you just want news on demand, see Flash! You Don’t Need to Pay for 24/7 News, page 14.

C-SPAN: The only Cable TV Replacement service that carries C-SPAN is DirecTV Stream. If you want your government fix and don’t plan to get DirecTV Stream, you’ll have to watch the live feeds on the c-span.org website or with the C-SPAN Now smartphone app, which you can screencast to your TV.

Sporting events: Most major live sporting events are carried on broadcast TV and ESPN. You’ll need an antenna or Cable TV Replacement service for the TV stations. Like the cable news channels, ESPN offers a separate streaming app that doesn’t duplicate what’s on the live cable channel (ESPN+ doesn’t even carry the flagship SportsCenter show). For ESPN, ESPN 2 and regional sports channels, you’ll need a Cable TV Replacement service.

Rentals: Some older shows that you enjoy watching on cable may not be available for streaming because the rights holder can’t or won’t make a streaming deal. The only way to watch these shows online is to rent or purchase them.

Step 2: Hardware

When cord-cutting, the goal is to improve the viewing experience while also saving money. Many people, though, will use this occasion to spend money, maybe on a new 4K TV and a nice soundbar. By no means do you have to do this. As long as your TV has an HDMI port for connecting a streaming player, you’re good to go. Most people reading this already have a Roku, Chromecast, Fire TV or Apple TV connected to their TV for watching Netflix and renting videos.

On the other hand, with the money you save by switching to streaming, you can afford a new 65-inch Smart TV, and everything will certainly look better on that, won’t it? With that in mind, let’s review your hardware options:

Smart TV. If you’ve had a Roku box or Chromecast dongle plugged into your TV for a few years, it probably needs an upgrade. The wi-fi antenna and processor speed are much better in the newer models. Then again, you could ditch the plug-in box altogether and get a Smart TV with the streaming player built in. You can even get one that runs on the latest Roku, Google or Fire TV operating system.

Internet: Now that you’ll be streaming all the time, do you need more Internet bandwidth? Maybe, maybe not. Streaming video is very efficient: A theater-quality 4K picture needs bandwidth of 18mbps (megabits per second) per stream, and HD requires only 8mbps. Even with multiple users streaming in your household at once, commonly-available Internet speeds of 50mbps to 100mbps should suffice. If you notice the picture downscaling from high-definition to standard, or the image freezing and pixels dropping out, try the next-higher tier of Internet speed and see if that helps.

TV antenna: Why would you want to revert to a technology that your grandparents used? Well, assuming you’ve done Step 1 and determined that you don’t need to watch live cable channels, then an antenna can give you dozens of local TV channels without monthly fees. (Yes, we said dozens: See Those TV Channels You’ve Never Heard Of, page 12.) Today’s antennas are unobtrusive and simple to install. An antenna will pass along TV signals even when your Internet fails.

Antenna DVR. If you want to record shows off the antenna, then you’ll need to get an Antenna DVR. These are smaller than the older types of DVRs and usually don’t need to be in the same room as the TV, so long as they’re connected to the home network. Some are more technically imposing than others, and some charge monthly fees for the listings data that makes a DVR smart. The Fire TV Recast from Amazon and TiVo Edge for Antenna are both easy to use and offer models with lifetime listings data (no monthly fees).

Step 3: Streaming Platforms

All streaming services and platforms are accessed through apps that you install on your streaming player or Smart TV, just like you install apps on your smartphone. You’ll choose your apps based on the information you gathered in Step 1.

Streaming apps fall into one of three categories:

Cable TV Replacements: Services like YouTubeTV and Sling offer a familiar basic cable viewing experience with a Cloud DVR for saving programs. In many cases you can add local TV stations to the bundle. Cable TV Replacement services cost $25 to $65 a month, depending on how many channels are in the bundle.

Premium Streaming Platforms: These are the brands you know: Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max, Disney+, etc. Most of the shows that you wrote down in Step 1 are streaming on these platforms.

Free Streaming Platforms: These are streamers that cost nothing but a few minutes of your time every hour for commercial breaks. PlutoTV, IMDb TV, Tubi and many others are owned by the same large companies that own cable and TV networks and premium streaming platforms. Their libraries are vast and often overlap those of the premium streamers.

For more, see A Reference to Popular Streaming Services, beginning on page 19.

Common cord-cutting scenarios

Now let’s see some ways you might put together a Streaming TV setup that works for you. These scenarios cover only your monthly spending on TV, plus upfront costs. They assume that you already have high-speed Internet or are planning to get it. Also, we’ve set the cost of Prime Video at zero because most U.S. households already have an Amazon Prime membership; if yours doesn’t, add $9 a month for Prime Video. You can also install Free Streaming apps for even more variety.

The budget-minded smorgasbord

  * based on annual rate

A TV antenna takes the place of a cable or satellite subscription in this thrifty scenario that still gives cord-cutters a wide variety of choices. It will appeal to viewers whose favorite shows are available on streaming and can live without basic cable.

Assuming you currently spend $85 a month on Pay TV (which was the median amount for U.S. cable subscribers in 2021), you’d be saving $46 a month in this scenario. At that rate you’d cover the cost of the new hardware and save hundreds more in Year 1 alone.

Simple and elegant

This antenna-free scenario will appeal to cord-cutters who like the basic cable experience and want to keep it simple. YouTubeTV offers more than 100 cable channels, your local TV stations and a Cloud DVR from one central interface.

Variety and flexibility

* based on annual rate

This combines an antenna with a value-priced Cable TV Replacement service and some value-priced premium streamers, offering a wide variety of entertainment without breaking the bank. Many premium streamers offer ad-supported versions at a lower cost. Having both an Antenna DVR and Cloud DVR offers the flexibility of saving local and cable shows in addition to searching for on-demand programs. Sling Orange offers a decent-sized package of basic cable channels including CNN and ESPN, which can be bundled with an antenna and Sling’s AirTV Antenna DVR at a special price.

Your Favorite Network Shows Are Probably on Streaming

From 2019 to 2021, the parent companies of the studios that produce most broadcast and cable network programming launched their own streaming platforms. As a result, most network shows are now being repurposed to streaming.

When deciding if you need to hang onto your cable or satellite subscription, the following chart may be helpful.

* AT&T has announced a deal to spin off WarnerMedia assets and merge them with Discovery assets, pending governmental approval.

Those TV Channels You’ve Never Heard Of

Classic Movies Channel. Jersey Shore. Docurama. TheGrio. Cheddar News. FailArmy. WeatherNation. Grit. This Old House. If you start seeing strange new channels like these, you’ve likely bought a new Smart TV or plugged in a TV antenna and done a channel scan.

A slew of new free, ad-supported TV channels have come online in recent years. They fall into two categories:

Broadcast TV channels. With the switch to digital broadcasting in the 1990s, local TV stations were able to split their signals into multiple channels. In addition to the flagship station — usually a high-definition network affiliate — most TV signals have several standard-definition subchannels, typically classic TV and film channels (MeTV, Antenna TV, Cozi TV, Movies!), niche channels (Comet for sci-fi, Grit for westerns, Bounce for Black programming, Dabl for lifestyle), religious programming, news and weather.

Streaming TV channels. More recently, thousands of free streaming channels have been launched around the world. Though many can be watched on standalone apps, many Smart TVs now include tiers of streaming channels (sometimes called Internet TV channels) so users can channel-surf them in the same loop as their regular TV stations. Many free streaming channels are extensions of existing media brands (ABC News Live, USA Today, Bob Ross, Court TV). A growing number are lean-back channels that offer 24/7 loops of programming from popular TV brands (Stories by AMC, Hallmark Movies & More, TV Land Sitcoms).

These free channels add a lot of variety and are a nice complement to your premium streaming services. Be advised, though, that the commercial breaks on some of these channels might drive you bananas.

Flash! You Don’t Need To Pay for 24/7 News

CNN, MSNBC and Fox News pull in some of Cable TV’s largest audiences and are hugely profitable for cable and satellite operators. That explains why these channels have not migrated to streaming. Instead, their corporate owners have chosen to launch separate branded streaming platforms (Fox Nation, NBC News Now and CNN+). Cord-cutters can get the original cable news channels only if they shell out $35 or more per month for a Cable TV Replacement service.

Let’s say, though, that you’re looking for actual news reporting and breaking-news coverage, as opposed to a bunch of celebrity anchors and pundits offering their narratives and spin. Great news! There’s a growing market for 24-hour TV news and it’s all happening away from cable. The channels listed below are all backed by major news organizations and have global reach. Best of all, they’re free to watch.

Newsy is the first 24-hour news channel available on broadcast TV. Aimed at people who like their news straight, without political slant, it’s owned by E.W. Scripps, a major broadcast TV chain with deep roots in newspaper publishing. In 2021 Scripps made Newsy a live-around-the-clock broadcast service, available on local TV as a subchannel in more than 130 markets.

On the streaming side, the news divisions of ABC, CBS and NBC have had streaming platforms for years but have only recently started making significant investments in them. ABC News Live created a signature one-hour nightly newscast in 2020, anchored by Linsey Davis. NBC News Now followed suit with a nightly newscast anchored by Tom Llamas. CBSN, launched in 2014, announced a major overhaul in early 2022, including a competing one-hour newscast and originals hosted by Norah O’Donnell, Gayle King and other network talent. All three streamers continue to add live news coverage throughout the day.

Sky News, launched in 1989 and owned by Comcast, is a respected British news service that carries a great deal of U.S. reporting, plus international headlines and weather (and almost no ads).

Al Jazeera English, based in Doha, Qatar, launched in 2006 to expand the audience of the popular Arabic-language news channel. The anchor desk moves through the day, from Doha to London to Washington, D.C. AJE is the most seasoned of a crop of English-language global news services including France 24, Germany’s DW and Russia’s RT.

To ease you through your cable-news withdrawal, the audio feeds of CNN, MSNBC and Fox News are available through TuneIn.

A Reference to Popular Streaming Services

Cable TV Replacements

These services offer cable channels without the wire and, if you like, can also provide local TV stations without the antenna. They come with Cloud DVRs for effortless saving of shows. And they offer multiple simultaneous streams on your TV, computer and mobile devices. For users who find they can’t get all the live sports, news and entertainment they want from streaming platforms only, these services are worth the extra expense.

Prices and channel lineups may have changed since The Primetimer Guide went to press. A comparison site like Suppose.tv pulls the latest lineup and pricing data from all the top streaming services, matches it to the channels you select from its menu, then shows you the most competitive offers from the services that best match your preferences.

YouTube TV

Best-in-class YouTubeTV is renowned for its ease of use, unlimited DVR and deep menu of channels. YouTubeTV’s user experience is outstanding; you might even say it’s addictive. You’ll find yourself stumbling upon channels you forgot existed, like MTV Classic, and you’ll be impressed by the powerful DVR.

Pricing: At $64.99/month, you get all the broadcast stations in your market (including PBS) and more of the top cable channels than any of the other all-in-ones. If you want more than three streams at once, that will cost $10/month extra, but you also get 4K and offline viewing with that.

Hulu with Live TV

If Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN+ are all on your wishlist, this is the Live TV service for you. Hulu shook things up in late 2021 by adding its popular subscription streamers Disney+ and ESPN+ to all Hulu + Live TV plans. This is great news for people who were planning to grab those services anyway. Though reviewers find Hulu’s Live TV interface dated compared with YouTubeTV’s interface, Disney+ and ESPN+ run on separate apps with more user-friendly interfaces.

Pricing: $69.99/month for the ad-supported Hulu, 80+ popular Cable TV channels, 50 hours of Cloud DVR and the Disney+ and ESPN+ services. To watch Hulu without ads costs $75.99/month. (For more about Hulu, see page .)

DirecTV Stream

Watch sports channels you can’t stream anywhere else — for a price. In 2019, after the new owners of several regional sports networks raised their rates, other all-in-one streamers dropped them. But not AT&T, the parent company of DirecTV. A laggard in the all-in-one streaming competition, AT&T saw this as a chance to stand out, and agreed to the pricey terms. If your market is home to one of the MLB, NBA or NHL teams whose local broadcast rights are exclusive to Bally Sports, YES or AT&T SportsNet, you’ll need DirecTV Stream to stream those games, and the added costs will be passed on to you.

The biggest strike against DirecTV Stream is that its majority owner is AT&T, the cable and satellite giant, and its pawprints are all over this supposedly next-generation product. Besides the unnecessary set-top box for $5/month (no thanks), reviewers have complained of a poor user experience, lack of Google Chromecast support and, maybe the worst sin, getting calls from DirecTV reps trying to upsell them to the dish.

Pricing: You’ll need the Choice option, which starts at $90/month and includes a full lineup of entertainment channels plus any in-market regional sports networks. Out-of-market networks will cost more: According to Suppose.tv, a Chicago-based fan of St. Louis Cardinals baseball will shell out nearly $150/month for a Choice package that offers regional network coverage of the Cubs’ archrival. (Switching loyalties to the White Sox would be cheaper.)

Fubo

Popular among sports fans for its global and American sports channel choices. With its shelves stocked with live and on-demand sports programming, Fubo has become the choice of more than 1 million subscribers, 96 percent of whom watch sports. It doesn’t have the regional networks that DirecTV Stream has a lock on and it doesn’t carry any of the Turner networks, including TBS and TNT — which is a problem if you like watching NBA games or the MLB playoffs. (In late 2021 Fubo’s CEO hinted that the company was trying to get the Turner networks back, so check the site.) And though you’ll be able to get your local TV stations with Fubo, it had the smallest bundle of entertainment channels of any of the four Cable TV Replacement services we compared.

Pricing: $64.99/month for the Starter plan with 250 hours of Cloud DVR, $69.99/month for Pro (more streams and 1,000 hours of DVR storage), $79.99/month for Elite (more channels). There’s a separate Latino bundle with 33 Spanish-language channels and Cloud DVR for $32.99/month.

Value-Priced Cable TV Replacements

If you plan to get local TV via antenna but still want some basic cable channels, these services give you skinny bundles at a value price.

Sling

Two substantial but smaller-sized bundles of cable networks for $35/month, plus Cloud DVR. Sling Blue and Sling Orange have a lot of overlap, but only Orange has channels owned by Disney, including ESPN. Some Smart TVs have Sling integration, which means Sling (cable) and antenna channels appear side-by-side when you’re channel-surfing, just like old times.

Philo

An even more stripped-down lineup than Sling’s, but at just $25/month it may be just what you need. Paramount Network, AMC, and the full suit of Discovery and MTV networks (including Comedy Central and VH1) are here. Unlimited Cloud DVR is included.

Frndly

Very skinny bundles of family-friendly networks, including Hallmark and History, come in plans ranging from $6.99/month to $10.99/month. Some tiers offer Cloud DVR.

Fanatiz

If it’s only deportes you want, this niche streamer offers a soccer-heavy package en Español, with replays on demand, for $7.99/month.

Premium Streaming Platforms: The Big 9

As Netflix has taught us, Streaming TV can hold its own with broadcast and cable when it comes to producing blockbuster programs and movies. These are the cream-of-the-crop streaming services. They spend billions per year on original content and win the lion’s share of prestigious television awards.

Flush with cash, the largest streamers are racing to stockpile as much quality content as their budgets will allow. The next step, inevitably, is consolidation. Already Discovery and WarnerMedia have announced plans to merge, and more M&A activity is predicted in the near future. That will either wind up making the Big 9 even bigger, as they gobble up smaller streamers, or reducing the ranks of this league of giants, perhaps to the Big 7 or even fewer.

Four streaming platforms are backed by traditional ad-supported networks: HBO Max, Peacock, Hulu and Paramount+. These four will sell you a value-priced version of their platform if you agree to watch limited commercial interruptions (note the quote marks). Except for Peacock Premium, the ad-supported versions give you access to all the content of the regular platform. Think of them as paid trial versions — if you enjoy what you get with an ad-supported streaming platform, it might be worth it for you to upgrade to the ad-free version.

Netflix

The go-to streamer if you want the most-watched TV shows. Netflix continues to dominate in market share and, just as important, mindshare: It’s the No. 1 destination for viewers the moment they turn on the TV. (If they even need to do that. Many TV remotes now have a button that will power on the set and go straight to Netflix.) In 2020, 80% of the most-watched series in the U.S. were on Netflix.

Pricing: All Netflix tiers are ad-free. For $10/month you get a sharp, reliable standard-definition (480p) picture on one screen at a time. Upgrade to high-definition and 2 screens at a time for $15.49/month or 4K/UHD quality and other extras for $20/month.

Originals of note: Squid Game, Bridgerton, The Crown, Tiger King, The Queen’s Gambit, Never Have I Ever, Bridgerton, Stranger Things, The Lost Daughter, Nailed It!, Queer Eye, You, Cobra Kai, Bird Box and many more

Size matters. With more than 200 million subscribers worldwide, Netflix generates a stupendous amount of cash flow. That allows it to produce thousands of hours of original programming; Netflix’s annual content budget may exceed $20 billion in 2023.

"But they don’t have The Office anymore!" In early days Netflix grew its audience by streaming established hits like The Office andFriends. Many of those shows and movies have since been clawed back by their studios so they could launch streaming services to compete with Netflix. Occasionally Netflix will pay top dollar to hang onto a TV show’s rights, as it did with Seinfeld in 2021. Thanks to its enormous catalog of Netflix originals, however, the streamer is less reliant on other people’s shows.

The global advantage. Netflix is in 190 countries and is savvy about leveraging hit shows in one country to viewers in others. Witness such international phenomena as Squid Game, Babylon Berlin and the Narcos franchise. Perhaps you’ve noticed an Israeli thriller like Possessions or one of several dubbed shows from Eastern Europe in your Netflix feed. If you don’t mind reading subtitles or listening to dubbed voices (some viewers turn on both options), you can make some satisfying cross-cultural finds.

HBO Max

HBO and more add up to an excellent value in premium TV. For the price of a regular HBO subscription, you get a lot more with HBO Max. Stream all the movies and acclaimed shows you expect from HBO anytime, plus titles from other WarnerMedia companies like TNT, TBS, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network and Warner’s TV division. This gives HBO Max’s library impressive depth, and since WarnerMedia has been in the hitmaking business for more than 30 years, the overall quality is high.

Pricing: $15/month ($150/year) gets you HBO Max with no ads, plus offline downloads and 4K video. There’s also a budget plan: $10/month ($100/year) for HD-quality video that’s ad-supported (no downloads). Either way, you can install and the app and simultaneously stream on up to 5 devices.

Originals of note: Hacks, Station Eleven, The Flight Attendant, And Just Like That…, Gossip Girl; then there’s the HBO library with newer shows like Mare of Easttown, Succession, Betty and 100 Foot Wave joining such legacy titles as The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Oz, Game of Thrones, Sex and the City, Enlightened, The Leftovers and long-running factual series Real Time With Bill Maher, Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel and Hard Knocks.

The best ad-supported service: Maybe it’s the relatively high $10 monthly fee, but HBO Max’s ad-supported tier gets high marks from viewers for having fewer and shorter commercial interruptions than other ad-supported premium tiers.

Prime Video

Deep collection of originals and acquired content plus NFL games. The typical Amazon household doesn’t renew its Prime subscription for the TV shows. Until recently the majority of Prime members didn’t even look at Prime Video. But Amazon has been changing that. Its budget for spending on content is almost as large as Netflix’s and WarnerMedia’s. And while Prime Video content doesn’t innovate on the scale of HBO or Netflix programming (at least not yet), its depth and variety are still impressive. Recently Amazon inked a 10-year deal with the NFL, making Prime Video the exclusive home of NFL Thursday Night Football; previously it had shared the rights with Fox.

Pricing: This streaming channel is part of the Amazon Prime subscription ($119/year), which includes free expedited shipping on select Amazon purchases, streaming music, photo storage and more. Prime Video is also available by itself for $9/month. Install on unlimited devices; 3 simultaneous streams max.

Originals of note: Bosch, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Small Axe, The Tick, Transparent, The Underground Railroad, All Or Nothing, Being the Ricardos, Clarkson’s Farm, Invincible, LuLaRich, The Wheel of Time, One Night in Miami, The Wilds, The Boys, Hanna, Jack Ryan, Homecoming

It’s a streamer … and a hub for other streamers. Amazon, like Apple, combines its branded streaming service with a broader video platform. Prime Video subscribers have the option of adding other premium services directly to their account, including Paramount+, Discovery+, Starz, AMC+, Epix, BritBox and more. If your digital life revolves around Amazon products — you have a Fire Stick and Echo smart speakers, and are talking to Alexa all day long — then managing all your streams through Prime Video may be helpful. Just know that this interface exists primarily for Amazon’s benefit, so it can promote movie rentals and content from its fledgling ad-supported service IMDb TV (see below) more easily to users.

Disney+

Five big family entertainment brands add up to one massive streaming launch. Over the years The Walt Disney Company has acquired some of the best-known family brands in show business: Marvel, Pixar, LucasFilm and National Geographic. These four definitely put the plus in Disney+. When combined with the assets of Disney (including its recent purchase of select Fox Entertainment assets like The Simpsons), and offered at a nearly irresistible promotional price, it’s no wonder Disney+ started flying into homes. The service picked up 100 million subscribers in little over a year after launching in 2019 and is now the third-largest streamer in the U.S., behind Netflix and Prime Video.

Pricing: $8/month or $80/year. There’s also a Disney bundle that packages Disney+ with Hulu and ESPN+ for $15/month ($20/month for the no-ads version of Hulu; annual rate not available). Maximum 7 profiles, 10 devices and 4 simultaneous streams.

Originals of note: The Mandalorian, WandaVision, Hamilton, Soul, Encore!, High School Musical: The Musical – The Series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Doogie Kameāloha, M.D., The Right Stuff, The Beatles: Get Back, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, The Book of Boba Fett

There’s plenty to binge, provided you’re patient. Like HBO Max, Disney is thinking old-school when it comes to rolling out new shows and new seasons of returning shows. To keep the buzz going as long as possible, Disney+ typically posts three episodes of a new season in Week 1, with one new episode per week after that. So if you prefer watching all