Just when the variety of platforms was beginning to seriously destabilize agendas and wallets, SkyShowtime, Comcast and Paramount’s streaming service, has just arrived to complicate the plot. Should we add it to the household budget without looking back? Or is it time to rethink the Apple TV subscription, now that the return of ‘Ted Lasso’ is just around the corner? which one(s) of these services best suit our particular interests? Which one(s) will keep us from being left out of the liveliest conversations at the coffee machine?
At a time like this (of a certain collapse, say the people on the street, and of growth, say the optimistic executives) it is necessary to draw an overview to understand what the ‘streaming’ showcase offers us, that constantly fluctuating labyrinth; unfortunately, as of March 30 we will no longer have to think about whether to add Lionsgate , formerly Starzplay, which will cease to operate in Spain.
For those who do not know how to use their well-earned budget, here we offer a guide to the main temptations starting with the almost universal Netflix and continuing with the not inconsiderable Prime Video, a classic like HBO (Max) or a local pride like Filmin. What each one is about, who it is for and what it can cost. Everything for everyone and at all prices. Many different ways to follow the thread of the most influential and important popular culture of these times.
1. Netflix
The pioneering platform is as synonymous with ‘streaming’ as Danone is with yogurt. Its combination of (often) quality, variety, competitive prices and convenience of use is quite unbeatable. It has lost quite a few classic series due to the emergence of new competitors who wanted to recover their loans, but it has not failed to compensate by manufacturing new references, from ‘Stranger Things’ to ‘The Bridgertons’, passing through surprise phenomena such as ‘The Squid Game’ and ‘Wednesday’.
Who it’s for: This big bazaar is basically for everyone. Its spectrum ranges from an absurdist quiz show like ‘The Floor is Lava!’ to something as authorial as ‘Copenhagen Cowboy,’ Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest series.
How much it costs: Basic with ads, €5.49 per month; Basic, €7.99 per month; Standard (two devices, Full HD), €12.99 (or €18.98 with the one extra subscriber allowed) per month; Premium (four devices, Ultra HD), €17.99 per month (or €23.98 and €29.97 if one and two extra subscribers are added, respectively)
2. Amazon Prime Video
In April 2013, two months after Netflix premiered ‘House of Cards’, Amazon introduced a first ‘pilot season’ in which customers could choose which series made the cut; interestingly, they didn’t watch the resulting seasons too much afterwards. Now it’s decided more from within, and the data seems to say it’s better to focus on big productions with recognizable brands (‘Lord of the Rings’, ‘Jack Ryan’) rather than the small and niche. Be that as it may, its catalog still hosts some more intimate proposals, such as ‘El fin del amor’, an interesting Argentine series that shows the many current ways of loving or desiring, from friendship to polyamory, passing through the whirlwind of dating apps.
Who it’s for: For those who, in addition to watching movies and series, want to save shipping costs on their impulse purchases
How much it costs: 4.99 per month or $49.90 per year; rates reduced by half for students currently enrolled at a university with a valid university email address
3. HBO Max
In October 2021, the HBO we knew transformed into HBO Max, the platform built by WarnerMedia around its most prestigious brand. With the change came easy-to-locate content or more easily decipherable dark pictures, thanks to the leap to 4K. Also a widening of the narrative battlefield: HBO’s complex and exquisite productions (that includes ‘The last of us’) are joined by HBO Max’s more generalist or recognizable brand-based ones. In the latter sense, it will be here where you can see, for example, ‘Welcome to Derry’, the prequel to ‘It’ prepared by director Andy Muschietti, also author of the recent film diptych on the killer clown. Or another presumably spectacular prequel like ‘Dune: The Sisterhood’, set 10,000 years before the rise of Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides.
Who it’s for: serialophiles who know how the Prestige TV era began; true believers, despite slips, in the religion of DC Comics
How much it costs: 8,99 € per month or 69,99 € per year.
4. Disney
Disney’s streaming business landed in Spain in March 2020, in the middle of the perfect storm, to the rescue of parents desperate to find something to distract their children and burn time in confinement. Its back catalog is bottomless and includes almost a century of films (animated and otherwise) from Disney, plus just about everything imaginable from the Pixar, Marvel, ‘Star Wars’ and National Geographic brands. In February 2021, it was joined in its offering, in addition, by the ‘grown-up’ Star stripe, which includes pearls from the FX (the breakout ‘The bear’, ‘The patient’) and Hulu Originals (‘The dropout’, ‘Dopesick’) brands. Some European titles from Disney could make a big splash this year: this is the case of ‘The Good Mothers’, a drama about the ‘Ndrangheta that won the Berlinale Series first prize, or ‘Tout va bien’, a family tragicomedy starring Virginie Efira.
Who it’s for: parents in need of a break; Disney, Marvel or ‘Star Wars’ fans; series gourmands who know the value of brands like FX and Hulu
How much it costs: 8,99 € per month or 89,90 € per year
5. Apple TV
Its shots are few but sure: series and some movies with well-known people in front of and behind the camera. And at all times, the degree of polish expected of any Apple product. Its star comedy is ‘Ted Lasso’, and its most celebrated drama, ‘Separation’ (best international series of 2022 according to this newspaper), but its offer also includes pearls such as ‘Dickinson’, ‘Servant’, ‘Mythic Quest’ or ‘Slow horses’, series that would be on everyone’s lips if they were seen on platforms with greater depth. This year will see the arrival of titles as attractive as ‘City on Fire’, an adaptation of Garth Risk Hallberg’s Great American Novel, or ‘Masters of the Air’, a miniseries by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg about the Eighth US Air Force during the Second World War. And, by the looks of it, also the new season of the monumental ‘Foundation’.
Who it’s for: believers of the ultimate ‘quality before quantity’; lovers of ‘product placement’ of iPhones
How much it costs: €6.99 per month; three months free when you buy an Apple device
6. Movistar Plus
Telefónica’s pay-TV platform, former product of the merger between Canal and Movistar TV, set out six years ago to compete with Netflix and HBO by producing a handful of original care of its own. From that plan have emerged series as ambitious as ‘La Unidad’, ‘Libertad’ and the collective ‘Apagón’, or comedies as unique as ‘Vergüenza’ and ‘Sentimos las molestias’, both by the unstoppable tandem formed by Álvaro Fernandez Armero and Juan Cavestany. Its additional series channels allow right now, for example, to take the pulse of European fiction (look here for most of the new BBC thrillers) and to follow classic titles from the Showtime cable channel (such as the recent but now classic ‘Yellowjackets’, whose second season premieres on March 24).
Who it’s for: devotees of less accommodating Spanish fiction; fans of six-episode British ‘thrillers’; lovers of the old zapeo habit
How much it costs: Movistar Plus Lite, 8 € per month; TV packages in myMovistar, associated with the contract of fixed and mobile lines and internet, from 11 € (Movistar Esencial)
7. Filmin
Something like a great virtual cinephile paradise and one, moreover, well signposted. Demonstrating that content can be organized with criteria, Filmin wisely bets on thematic channels or regularly updated collections; the most impressive, perhaps, the one dedicated to the best films in history according to the latest survey of ‘Sight & Sound’, which reaches 137 interesting titles. In addition to its collection of classic, auteur and/or films from all over the planet, there is a robust collection of series, especially European, which they have started to feed with their own strong productions such as ‘Self Defense’ or the imminent ‘selftape’. During the peak of the pandemic and beyond, Filmin has hosted the online versions of major national festivals. And it has its own: Atlàntida Film Fest, with important titles available before their theatrical release.
Who it’s for: moviegoers not allergic to series, especially European; audiences unable to physically attend film festivals
How much it costs: 7,99 € per month; 84 € per year
8. ATRESplayer PREMIUM
Atresmedia’s subscription package allows you to watch content from the group before it premieres on TV and, perhaps most importantly, enjoy the platform’s often daring original series. Since the end of 2019 they have premiered ‘spinoffs’ of some popular hits, but also blessed curiosities such as ‘Veneno’ (premiered on HBO Max in the United States), ‘Cardo’ (whose second season has just arrived on our screens) or the never entirely well-weighted ‘La ruta’, the existential series about bakalao that we didn’t know we needed. This Sunday arrives, rescued from Liongsate ‘s cessation of operations, the long-awaited ‘Nacho’, an irreverent and appropriately obscene approach to the life and miracles of porn actor Nacho Vidal.
Who it’s for: ‘Physics or chemistry’ and ‘UPA’ nostalgics; explorers of the new confines of Spanish serialized fiction
How much it costs: €4.99 per month; €49.99 per year
9. SkyShowtime
Two Hollywood giants, media conglomerates Comcast and Paramount Global, have joined forces, brands and catalogs to shape this Europe-only platform. At a time when the options are not few, SkyShowtime manages to be tempted by Taylor ‘Yellowstone’ Sheridan’s universe of series; all those pearls from Paramount , Peacock, Showtime and Sky Studios, or movie franchises such as ‘Star Trek’, ‘Mission: Impossible’ and ‘Fast & Furious’. In addition, five seasons of ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ (or eight! of ‘The Canine Patrol’) will serve to tame the beasts. All for a more than competitive price: 2.99 € per month (for life) for those who take out the card before April 25.
Who it’s for: completists of the ‘streaming’ maze; interested in upcoming productions from Peacock, Paramount , Showtime and Sky Studios; worshippers of old-school Hollywood entertainment
How much it costs: 2,99 € (initial offer at 50%) and 5,99 € (after April 25)
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