The Rise of Streaming Services During Quarantine

Douglas Wallace, Staff Reporter

When families come home from work or school, everyone has a favorite show to watch in order to relax. The most popular streaming service used to be Netflix, but now it seems there are streaming services for every channel.

When quarantine first started most people were talking about the new Netflix series, “The Tiger King.” Since we were all home with nothing else to do, people mostly used Netflix for entertainment, but Netflix does not always have everyone’s favorite shows. And not everyone wanted to watch T.V, they wanted to binge a series. That’s when the rise of streaming services began.

Now we have streaming services such as: Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Hulu, Paramount+, Disney+, HBO Max & HBO Now. These companies realized that if everyone was forced to be home, the real money was bringing those movies and content to households.

There are many options of shows on these streaming services, but most of them have a big title they use to bring in more people. For example some of Netflix’s biggest shows are Stranger Things, Narcos: Mexico, and Cobra Kai. Then Amazon Prime Video has shows like The Boys, and The Expanse. Disney+ has probably one of the most streamed shows of the past year, The Mandalorian, set in the Star Wars universe.  It has exploded throughout the past year with the review site, Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 94%.

With all of these streaming services offering major flagship series, it is more evident that T.V is loosing the race.

Now with so many different options to watch something on it can be a little annoying. Sometimes you just want to watch one show out of the entire service but have to buy that new streaming service. With the rise of streaming services, consumers are seeing the fall of a very long lasting empire being T.V. Most T.V channels have seen a decline in viewership over the past few years, but with streaming services dominating the market now, they are seeing even bigger losses.