Welcome back to this week’s Buffering, where it’s one of our favorite weeks of the year: New York’s annual TV issue just came out. As usual, it’s packed with a ton of great stories, this year focusing on unscripted programming (or, as normal people call it, reality TV), from Love Is Blind and Survivor to the CEO of the Bravo-verse, Andy Cohen. It’s also where you’ll find a snazzy chart outlining the highlights of something that’s also become a tradition on Vulture and here at Buffering, namely our annual power list ranking the hottest subscription streamers right now. There’s a whole semi-scientific formula we use to get to the final results, including a survey I do of TV industry insiders and analysts who speak candidly about how each of the platforms is doing. If you’re a Buffering reader who also happens to be one of the anonymous insiders I surveyed this year, thanks very much for your help. For everyone else, read on to see which streamer got compared to Google and which one has a user interface that gives off “1980s cigarette-vending-machine vibes” (sadly, that could refer to several platforms).

This week’s issue also has an item about the latest word from Mount Paramount about the company’s streaming strategy — a story that very well could be completely outdated by the time you read it. –Joe Adalian

Reach Joe on Twitter @tvmojoe or email buffering@vulture.com.


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It’s been (another) brutal year for most of the players in the streaming space. Budgets are still being slashed and strategies trashed as the legacy companies behind Disney+/Hulu, Max, Peacock, and Paramount+ continue managing the aftershocks of last year’s talent strikes as well as the larger industry correction that began in 2022. Things that not so long ago felt unthinkable — like HBO agreeing to license Sex and the City reruns to archenemy Netflix — are now reluctantly accepted as necessary in order to help the corporate bottom line. But the focus on short-term gains comes at price.

As part of New York’s annual TV issue, I set out to determine– for the fourth year in a row– the hottest streaming platform right now, using metrics such as the state of their content slates, audience size, and what industry insiders and Vulture’s TV and cultural critics say about the streamers under the cloak of anonymity. And the result this year was really sort of a stunner: After easily topping our list the past two years, Max (née HBO Max) took a major tumble in the rankings, while several other players changed positions vs. our 2023 list. Read on to see who claimed the streaming crown this year and where all the other major platforms landed, plus a selection of insights from the aforementioned insiders and critics.  And for the full ranking — including dozens more quotes from our panelists, as well as a breakdown of my methodology — be sure to head to Vulture. Trust me, this year our insiders did not hold back.

Paramount+, which seemed to have some decent momentum going at the time of our 2023 survey, ranked dead last in all four of the metrics used for these rankings — and once again, dead last overall. Our industry-insiders panel and Vulture’s critics both put it at the bottom of their lists, while a lack of buzz for most of its originals (the Yellowstone pipeline dried up due to last summer’s labor issues) and the turmoil at its parent company killed its chances in the momentum and audience-impact categories. It’s a shame, because P+ actually still has some very strong components: It’s the home of next-day CBS content (including buzzy — or at least popular — fare like Ghosts, Elsbeth, and Tracker), it has great IP from Paramount Pictures and MTV Entertainment, and its reboot of Frasier was actually great. But P+ always seems to find a way to make the least of its strengths. Take the long-overdue integration of Showtime into the platform: It only happened after the pay-cable net saw its staff and programming slate slashed, then, rather than make it part of the core service (as HBO with Max), it’s been walled off behind a premium tier. This could be the last year there’s even a P+ to include in this ranker, and if so, it’ll be a shame. It coulda been a contender.

➽ “The offscreen drama for Paramount is way better than anything they have onscreen. If they had a Real Housewives of Shari Redstone, they would be No. 1.” —Studio executive

➽ “A scrappy service that often punches above its weight but hobbled by its lack of breadth and resources.” —Media-industry analyst No. 1

➽ “Does Paramount+ have a strategy outside frantically sending someone out to Taylor Sheridan’s ranch and picking up whatever scripts he’s got lying around?” —Roxana Hadadi

After surging to fifth place in 2023, Peacock falls a spot this year, the victim of its inability to build on its past momentum. Yes, The Traitors was arguably even buzzier in season two, and audiences seemed to eat up Ted. But Apples Never Fall dropped from the Nielsen charts nearly as quickly as it appeared, and overall, most of what’s driving traffic to Peacock is next-day viewing of NBC programming and really expensive sports programming (like that NFL playoff game that annoyed so many football fans). Of course, NBCU execs would no doubt argue these are all good things, and maybe they are. There’s still plenty to like about Peacock, and if Paramount+ goes away (or its content gets folded into Peacock), things could look a lot different 12 months from now.

➽ “Slowly and steadily, moving up the rankings by playing to sports-content and network-content offerings.” —Wall Street analyst

➽ “Merge with Paramount already.” —PR-industry veteran

➽ “Whatever else you want to say about Peacock, you can’t argue with the fact that it has Law & Order.” —Kathryn VanArendonk

Apple TV+ made more shows than ever this past year, and many of them were actually very good: Our critics ranked it No. 3, ahead of Netflix, and there’s a decent chance the platform will have several breakthroughs when the next round of Emmy nominations comes out next month. Apple also did okay with our industry insiders, who ranked it a respectable fourth. But those two things weren’t enough to overcome the feeling that as many good shows as Apple TV+ boasts, and as many shows as it cranks out, period, it too often feels like the forgotten streamer. Marketing for the platform has been nonexistent to poor — which probably explains last month’s exit of marketing chief Ricky Strauss — and lately the cadence of releases has picked up so much it’s been hard for even those who get paid to cover the business to keep up with everything new coming from the service. Apple’s decision to forgo spending billions to buy a library of another company’s old TV shows and movies allowed it to instead spend billions making lots of its own shows and movies. But as the streamer prepares to mark its fifth anniversary this fall, it needs to figure out how to make sure all that programming has an impact.

➽ “Clearly star/prestige fuckers. They want to be the new HBO. Someone should tell them who actually succeeds at this goal for a fraction of the price—FX. (Start buying ideas and make stars, instead of trying to buy them.)” —Hollywood writer No. 1

➽ “I think Apple has done a good job of trying to be the HBO of streaming. Not every show is great, but I love the batting average. I realize that nobody’s watching (relatively speaking), but I’m glad that Apple’s ecosystem play is helping fund a bunch of actually good content.” —Media-industry analyst No. 2

➽ “Apple TV+ is very much the definition of niche elite programming, something that isn’t crafted for mass adoption; a Tesla for the eyeballs. But what the hell, I like a Tesla.” —Nicholas Quah

Prime Video may not be beloved — it’s part of a corporate behemoth, after all — but the Amazon streamer quietly had a really good year on multiple fronts. Fallout has become a ratings monster, spending three weeks atop Nielsen’s streaming charts and notching a full month of billion-plus minutes streamed, easily a record for a Prime series. Meanwhile, Reacher racked up big numbers for its second season last winter, many critics were fond of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and audiences have warmed up to the platform’s presentation of Thursday Night Football. And while (some of) those same audiences have been vocal on social media expressing their anger over the decision to include advertising as a default on Prime Video, the play instantly turned the streamer into a TV ad contender, potentially providing billions in revenue that can be used to pay for more Dad TV. Overall, while critics and our industry panel were sort of meh on Prime — particularly its perennially awful user interface — the streamer’s undeniable momentum over the past year plus its huge reach with broad-based hits allowed it to move up two spots in our ranking, the biggest upward leap of any service.

➽ “I don’t fully get what the brand is, but there is a lot of variety, and like Apple, they have money to burn. Bezos wants to be able to go to the Oscars.” —PR-industry veteran

➽ “Feeling like the Costco of streaming. Good programming but like a scavenger hunt to find a desired program.” —Former network executive No. 3

➽ “The Boys and Fallout are good shows! Unclear what else is really hitting over there or what the entire TV-development strategy is post-Maisel and in the steaming pit where buzz for Lord of the Rings should be.” —Kathryn VanArendonk

 3. Max

Max finds itself slipping to third mainly because our industry panel bailed hard (dropping it from first to third) and because HBO has been in one of its occasional “slow” periods of late where there’s more focus on what’s leaving (Succession, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Barry, A Black Lady Sketch Show, Winning Time, Our Flag Means Death) than on what’s new. And while True Detective did very well, and Hacks is hotter than ever, this was also the year of The Idol and The Girls on the Bus. Fact is, even if you think, as I do, that there’s been some overly dramatic, sky-is-falling commentary over David Zazlav’s many management errors at Warner Bros. Discovery, it’s also hard to deny the real damage the past few years have done to the platform’s brand. The name change, a user interface that’s gotten worse instead of better, and creative types regularly bashing the (big) boss — they all add up, and you see the result in this year’s ranking. That said, both Max and HBO proper still possess all the elements of an essential streaming platform (there’s a reason it ranked second with our critics), and season two of House of the Dragon followed by the fall launch of The Penguin and a new season of The Sex Lives of College Girls will very likely get people talking about Max positively again, as will 2025’s returns of White Lotus and The Last of Us. 

➽ “David Zaslav would make a great CEO of G.E. in 1985; he is a terrible boss of an entertainment company in 2024. He has no feel for the creative at all. You can feel it when you look at the Max slate, which is … well, what is it, actually? It still seems like just the place where you wade through a bunch of crap to watch HBO shows.” —Veteran showrunner

➽ “So many strong scripted shows that I can name easily and had the audience talking. Not as many shows as Netflix, but you aren’t overwhelmed with too much content that you don’t care about.” —Television-publicity executive

➽ “They took the HBO out of the name, but they still have all that HBO content, which, even when it misses (see The Regime) is still interesting, at least.” —Jen Chaney

We combined Disney+ and Hulu in this ranking last year, anticipating the day that the two services would be available on one platform. And that’s exactly what happened late last year, when D+ finally allowed consumers who subscribed to both offerings to watch episodes of The Bear in the same place they stream i and Winnie-the-Pooh. The combo underscored the power of Disney’s streaming bundle for both our industry insiders and Vulture’s critics, who ranked them second and first overall, respectively. The critics were mostly wowed by FX’s programming over the last year (think Shōgun and, of course, that darn Bear); industry insiders were taken with the way the two streamers balance each other out and make it a more formidable rival for Netflix. It’s impressive that Disney+/Hulu did so well in a year when its Marvel and Star Wars offerings were relatively weak — and a sign of how much room to grow there is should Disney’s big franchises return to full strength.

➽ “Very reliable. Consistent. Shōgun outstanding. Other offerings have an air of self-importance, maybe a little pretentious. Maybe I’m projecting.” —Former network executive No. 3

➽ “Hulu has some awesome shows, and I love the access to broadcast stuff, but they have a problem because everybody knows when a show is on Netflix, and no one knows when a show is on Hulu.” â€“Veteran showrunner

➽ “Hulu, with their relationship to FX, tends to carry the highest-quality narrative television being made. Disney+’s own output I would consider to be far worse, especially its floundering franchise-extension TV shows, but to me, the Hulu side is still enough to carry the day.” —Jackson McHenry

Less than two years after Wall Street and many in the entertainment industry soured on Netflix, there’s been a vibe shift from both camps: The streaming giant is back on top, arguably stronger than ever. In recent weeks, its stock price has flirted with all-time highs, as investors applaud Netflix’s return to double-digit subscriber growth and quarterly profits measured in billions. Those gains have come in no small part by a series of moves consumers would probably say they hate: cracking down on password sharing, putting commercials on shows, and hiking the monthly fee. But those viewers seem pretty satisfied by Netflix’s content strategy, embracing both ambitious bets like 3 Body Problem and Ripley as well as crowd-pleasers such as The Night Agent and The Roast of Tom Brady. And it doesn’t hurt that rival conglomerates have once again taken to leasing their biggest library titles to the enemy, allowing Netflix to give its members access to linear TV faves such as Young Sheldon. Overall, this year’s rankings race wasn’t even close. Says one veteran TV-publicity executive, “Future installments of this survey may actually need to place Netflix in its own ‘above it all’ category with everyone else fighting each other down below while the king sits by and takes it all in, amused.”

➽ “You listen to their self-regard and their feeling that their underpayment of talent is okay because of the value of the “Netflix Effect,” and you wish they’d fail miserably. Then your heart sinks as you realize that they won’t.” —Agent No. 1

➽ “More consumers are beginning to see Netflix as synonymous to TV; a one stop shop where they can get everything except decent live sports. If they ever crack live sports, news and topical programming, they will become the Google of TV.” ––Media industry analyst No. 1

➽ “Yes, Netflix still puts out a lot of lowest-common-denominator crap, but no other streamer generates immediate buzz around a show the way Netflix does. And that’s largely been a good thing in a year when it’s given us Baby Reindeer and Ripley.” —Jen Chaney

Once again, you can find a greatly-expanded version of this list, and a lot more insider and critical snark over at Vulture .

For many months now, Hollywood insiders and industry commentators have been talking about Paramount+ — at least the service as it currently exists — as a dead streamer walking. This week, however, the obituary notices started coming from within the building.

During a shareholder presentation Tuesday, the three execs currently running Paramount Global (at least for now; the company may be on the verge of being sold) announced that they had a plan to “transform” the company’s streaming strategy, which currently focuses on the stand-alone streamer Paramount+ (and, to a lesser degree, free streamer Pluto TV). Toward this end, the trio said they had begun actively exploring the formation of a joint venture with either a rival streamer or a tech company — and that they’d already received interest from possible partners. While they didn’t go into any details of what such a joint venture would entail, both history and common sense suggest an outcome where Paramount+ either becomes a tile on another service, or its content gets folded into either a new or existing platform featuring content from multiple companies, similar to how Hulu at one time existed as a partnership among ABC, NBC, and Fox’s corporate owners.

The execs went out of their way to stress that they’re not thinking small here. “Let me clear: I’m not talking about marketing bundles,” like the one Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery are planning, said Chris McCarthy, president/CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks, and part of Par’s three-headed exec branch. Instead, the company is looking to form “a deep and expansive relationship, one that would make the most of our hit content while improving the customer offering.” McCarthy said Par wants a new paradigm which both reduces subscriber churn and, perhaps most importantly, controls cost.

It’s not that Par execs think their programming isn’t popular enough to work in a subscription universe. Quite the opposite: The exec trio talked up the populist appeal of its content and noted Paramount+’s ability to become a top five streamer just a couple of years after launch, with over 70 million global subscribers. But Paramount has decided the costs of running its own streaming service — marketing dozens of shows, finding a user interface that actually works, etc. — are too high. Instead, it wants to create a new paradigm where Paramount content (CBS shows, MTV reality series, the Yellowstone universe, Paramount Pictures movies) has a guaranteed home, but not in an expensive, self-contained luxury island where Par shareholders pay the full mortgage Think of it this way: Paramount wants to move its streaming offering from the ritzy mountain-top mansion where it’s lived the past few years and relocate it to a still very-nice duplex condo where another owner (or owners) helps pay for building upkeep.

To underscore just how serious they were about moving on from the current Paramount+ status quo, McCarthy said the company has “already had a great deal of an inbound interest” in the idea, and that there would be more details “soon.” It’s worth noting here that back in February, the Wall Street Journal reported that Paramount had engaged in conversations with Peacock owner Comcast about a Peacock–Paramount+ merger “through a partnership or joint venture” — the exact same wording McCarthy used this week. The paper has also reported Warner Bros. Discovery’s interest in a team-up. Nothing has happened publicly on this front, in part because of the aforementioned potential sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media, producer (with Par) of the recent Mission: Impossible and Top Gun movies and TV shows like Reacher and Jack Ryan. Per multiple published reports, the Skydance-Paramount deal is both all but done and possibly in doubt, given some supposed last minute doubts from Shari Redstone, the media mogul who basically controls Paramount through her family’s movie theater chain National Amusements.

It’s this uncertainty which may explain why Tuesday’s admission by Paramount’s current leadership that Paramount+ as a stand-alone business no longer makes sense hasn’t generated a ton of headlines. Fact is, as long as there’s a strong chance that new ownership could be taking over, any plans from the current “office of the CEO” of Paramount Global come with a major asterisk attached. It’s hard to imagine any potential Paramount+ partner would sign a deal without knowing for sure that either the people executing said deal will be around to see it through or that the new owners are on board with the idea. And then there’s this: Many in the media and Wall Street have been operating under the assumption that Paramount+ as it is now isn’t long for this world, and that any new owner, including Skydance, would look to make a meaningful change in streaming. (In fact, I continue to hear rumblings from very good sources that a Paramount+/Peacock team-up of some sort is more likely than not, however the current ownership drama gets resolved.) So the fact that the current management officially signed on shaking things up might not read as worthy of a breaking news alert.

But if Redstone’s supposed waffling ends with the Skydance bid being called off and Paramount Global moving forward with one or all of its current leaders, then this week will go down as a very important milestone in the streaming wars. Five years after Apple and Disney officially kicked off hostilities vs. Netflix in the race to win SVOD share, a major combatant could be getting ready to sue for peace.