So your brain is exploding trying to understand all the new streaming TV services. You’re not alone.
So your brain is exploding trying to understand all the new streaming TV services. You’re not alone.
Making sense of which companies own what content, where that content will be available, how you can access that content, how much everything costs, and whether or not it will be worth your investment are all important questions, and their answers aren’t easy to find in one place. We’re here to help.
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We know that four major global media companies are planning to launch streaming services in the near future: WarnerMedia (owner of HBO and Warner Bros.), Disney $DIS (owner of Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Pixar), Apple $AAPL (owner of…phones), and NBCUniversal (owner of The Office and lots of other TV shows and movies). Their goal? Cut into Netflix $NFLX’s monopoly on streaming, take better advantage of their own libraries and intellectual property, stem the tide of TV cord-cutting, and meet consumers where they are. These four won’t be the last major companies to launch proprietary streaming services, but they are the four worth focusing on for now—they’re the biggest, and the most imminent.
Here is everything we know about HBO Max, Disney+, Apple+, and NBCUniversal’s unnamed streaming service. We will update this story as more information becomes available (and oh boy will it).
It’s simple: HBO Max is pretty much the reason AT&T $T bought Time Warner in the first place.
Not long after the telecommunications giant acquired Time Warner for $85 billion and renamed it WarnerMedia last year, the company announced it was developing a streaming service that would house content from across Warner’s many brands: HBO, TBS, TNT, CNN, and the Warner Bros. film and TV studios, among other assets. Later, it revealed the service would be called HBO Max (even though it includes plenty of non-HBO content), hoping to capitalize on the prestige TV channel’s cherished global brand.
AT&T thinks HBO Max will not only help it compete against Netflix, but that it will also act as something of a buffer for all the DirecTV customers AT&T is losing to cord-cutting. DirecTV, which is owned by AT&T, lost more than a half million subscribers in the first quarter of this year.
A lot, actually. WarnerMedia says it will total 10,000 hours of content. These are the main components:
A “beta” version of the service will launch later this year, according to the Wall Street Journal. The full version of HBO Max is expected to be available in spring 2020.
We don’t know for sure yet, but the Wall Street Journal reported that WarnerMedia is eying a $16-to-$17-per-month price tag, which would be $2 more than a standalone HBO subscription and about $4 more than Netflix.
If you’re an existing HBO subscriber, then you’ll probably get access to HBO Max automatically. If you don’t pay for HBO, then you’ll have to sign up for the service at its standard price tag.
WarnerMedia is making HBO the centerpiece of the streaming service, which makes a lot of sense, as it’s easily the company’s most lucrative business, with the most famous intellectual property. But it’s also a gamble: The HBO brand has long stood for quality over quantity, so if WarnerMedia suddenly lumps a whole lot of new content under the HBO umbrella (some of which very likely will not live up to the channel’s high standards), then it risks seriously diluting the brand that millions of consumers around the world have come to admire.
HBO Go is the free on-demand streaming component that only HBO cable TV subscribers are given with their subscription. HBO Now is the standalone internet version of HBO that anyone can buy, even without a traditional cable TV subscription. So HBO Max is basically a slightly more expensive HBO Now plus all the other goodies mentioned above.
If you value the HBO brand, then HBO Max would indeed appear to be a very good deal. For just a couple dollars more than a regular HBO subscription, you get all of HBO plus a lot of other cool stuff like Warner Bros. movies and shows produced by the BBC. The price point is steep (relative to Netflix and other options), but we think it’s fair, considering the content it offers.
I mean, you had to know this was coming. The Disney empire knows no bounds. Just as it took over the box office (Quartz member exclusive), Disney now seeks to take over streaming with a robust—and cheaper—Netflix competitor that utilizes its own vast library of content. Disney owns so much stuff that, quite frankly, we’re surprised it took them this long to put it all under one streaming roof.
That roof got much bigger when Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, and all of its film and TV assets, last year. Like AT&T’s purchase of Time Warner (now WarnerMedia), Disney’s Fox buyout was executed specifically with a streaming service in mind.
Star Wars, superheroes, and Pixar, oh my. And that’s just the half of it.
Disney has already started pulling many of its shows and movies off the rival streaming service as their licensing agreements run out. Most of it is expected to be gone from Netflix by the end of this year.
Nov. 12.
A standalone Disney+ subscription will cost $7 per month, or $70 for a year. You’ll also be able to sign up for a $13 bundle that includes Disney+ and Disney-owned services Hulu and ESPN+. (Disney bought a controlling stake in Hulu when it finalized its Fox takeover.) Only the ad-supported version of Hulu will be available as part of that bundle. Still, that’s $5 cheaper than if you were to sign up for all three services separately.
Existing Hulu subscribers will be able to keep that subscription, and then add on Disney+ for an extra fee. Everyone else will have to pay for either the $7-per-month basic Disney+ service or the $13 bundle. Disney also recently announced that Charter’s Spectrum TV customers will be able to sign up for Disney+ directly through their cable plans.
Because it’s Disney, you see, except, um, plus. In all seriousness, the “plus” name is all the rage in streaming right now. We don’t hate it—at least it’s consistent.
Hulu is a completely different streaming service that just now happens to be owned by Disney as well. The Mouse House currently has a 67% majority stake in the service, with Comcast $CMCSA as a 33% silent partner. Hulu will continue to have much of the same library as it used to, including its many originals, like The Handmaid’s Tale. So that’s not really changing. Disney plans to use Hulu as a “general entertainment” complement to Disney+’s more family-friendly studio offerings. (Read: All R-rated or potentially controversial stuff will stay on Hulu, while Disney+ remains pristine.)
ESPN+ is ESPN’s $5-per-month streaming service (Disney owns ESPN) that includes all kinds of sports programming outside of the main American sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL). So it’s got stuff like boxing, tennis, lacrosse, UFC, golf, cricket, and some MLS coverage.
If you like Disney stuff, then, yes, Disney+ is a must-get. In the near future it will be the only place to stream the vast majority of Marvel, Pixar, and Lucasfilm content as well as Disney’s hundreds of other shows and classic films. The $7 price (or $13 bundle with Hulu and ESPN+) is quite reasonable considering the quality of content the service will offer.
But if you’re just “meh” on Star Wars and superheroes, or couldn’t care less about Bambi, then maybe skip this one. You won’t be missing out on anything you care about.
After pretending for many years that it wasn’t interested in developing original content, Apple finally admitted what we knew to be true: It was developing original content. Now it needs a platform on which to put it all.
Enter Apple TV+, Apple’s answer to Netflix, HBO, and the streaming revolution. The tech company thinks that making its own shows, with big celebrities involved, will diversify its revenue streams, help it take on Netflix, and ultimately enable the company to sell more iPhones and iPads.
A number of Apple original series and films. Just how many is unknown. But we know a few of the TV shows Apple is developing that will either be available at launch or shortly after:
Other shows, like the reimagining of Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi anthology series Amazing Stories will be added to the service each month. Apple has dozens of original shows, films, and documentaries in the works, including stuff from Oprah Winfrey, JJ Abrams, and Sesame Workshop.
November 1st.
$4.99 per month. Those who buy a new Apple device with the TV app pre-installed will a year of the service for free.
Apple TV+ will reportedly be available in more than 100 countries. It will be part of Apple’s revamped TV app, which Apple is smartly allowing to appear on platforms like Samsung smart TVs, Amazon $AMZN Fire TV, Roku $ROKU, and more—so you won’t necessarily need an Apple device to download Apple’s TV app and sign up for an Apple TV+ subscription. There have been rumors that Apple could bundle an Apple TV+ subscription with subscriptions for Apple Music and Apple News Plus, but those haven’t been confirmed.
Apple has several products with “TV” in their names, and it’s pretty confusing. Here’s a basic rundown:
It’s really impossible to say at this point without knowing the quality of the content it will offer. The original content Apple is developing certainly has talented people involved in front of and behind the camera, but we know that doesn’t always translate to success—especially considering Apple, to this point, has been a technology company, and is completely unproven as an entertainment company. The low price point is certainly intriguing, even if the service offers much less content than most other streaming services. Check back for a recommendation later once we have more info.
Peacock! The name is a reference to NBC’s longtime logo, introduced in 1956 to underscore the network’s increase in color programming.
The Office.
No, really, that’s the main draw right now. The beloved NBC workplace comedy is leaving Netflix next year and will be available on the NBCU streaming service starting in 2021. NBCUniversal has also announced that original series Queer as Folk, One of Us Is Lying, and the third season of A.P. Bio (which NBC is reviving after initially cancelling it) will be exclusive to the streaming service.
Other than The Office, Peacock will include over 15,000 hours of content, comprised of a wide range of classic sitcoms, reboots of classic sitcoms, new original shows, and a library of films from Universal Pictures. Headlining the slate will be beloved comedies The Office (US version) and Parks and Recreation, as well as reboots of Battlestar Galactica, Saved by the Bell, and Punky Brewster.
Peacock’s original series will include Dr. Death, a drama starring Alec Baldwin based on the true-crime podcast of the same name, and Brave New World, an adaptation of the Aldous Huxley novel. On the original comedy front, Peacock will stream Rutherford Falls, co-created by The Office veterans Michael Shur and Ed Helms, and Straight Talk, from Rashida Jones and Jada Pinkett Smith. Here’s everything NBCU has officially announced so far.
April 2020.
It’s free—with ads—for paying NBC cable-TV subscribers in the US. Cord-cutters will have the option to subscribe to the streaming service separately, but we don’t know how much NBC is going to charge those people yet. Also, Comcast cable and Sky subscribers (Comcast acquired the London-based media conglomerate last year) will have access to the service. There will also be an ad-free version for an extra fee. We don’t know what platforms the service will be available on. Honestly, we hardly know anything about how it’ll be distributed yet.
NBC is an American TV network, owned by NBCUniversal. But NBCUniversal also owns a lot of other things (as discussed above) which, in addition to NBC shows and content, will be a part of this unnamed streaming service. So NBC content is just one component of it.
Again, we can’t say until we know the exact pricing structure (for non cable-TV subscribers). But no matter what’s included, the service will be a no-brainer for existing NBC subscribers, since it’s free. A lot will depend on the price of the ad-free version to recommend whether or not it’s worth upgrading to watch without commercials. But early indications are it will be enticing for fans of sitcoms in particular.
This story was updated on Aug. 20, 2019 (release month and possible monthly price for Apple TV+); Sept. 10 (official Apple TV+ price and launch date); Sept. 18 (NBCU streaming service name and more details).
