Established streaming industry leaders like Netflix and Amazon are facing more competition than ever. Now legacy entertainment giants are in the game with their own subscription services, like Peacock, HBO Max, Paramount Plus, and the Disney Plus / Hulu / ESPN Plus bundle, while Apple TV Plus attacks around the edges. Meanwhile, the rise of ad-supported free platforms like Roku Channel and Pluto TV has attracted enough attention that Plex, YouTube, and Amazon’s Freevee are trying to get a chunk of the action too.
“For the first time, U.S. subscribers can stream MLB Network 24/7 including select out-of-market games,” writes MLB. It’s $5.99 a month — or $6.99 to bundle live audio for every MLB team.
For football, NFL Plus costs $6.99 a month. Basketball is $14.99 a season for NBA League Pass, though the 2025-2026 season will now come to Amazon Prime Video as well.
Hayao Miyazaki’s opus — which originally hit Japanese theaters last July, and was long expected to be the director’s final film — will stream on Max on September 6th. For more on the movie, be sure to check out our interview with supervising animator Takeshi Honda.
Apple’s Sunny imagines a cozy future where screens fade into the background
The murder mystery was a chance for showrunner Katie Robbins to imagine a different kind of sci-fi vision.
Comcast’s earnings report today revealed that Peacock lost 500,000 subscribers in the months leading up to the Olympics — and Peacock’s planned price hike. Despite this, Peacock is pushing toward profitability with $1 billion in revenue and losses narrowing to $348 million.
Cowboy Cartel, which debuts on Apple TV Plus on August 2nd, is a four-part documentary show about a rookie FBI agent who took down the leaders of the Los Zetas drug cartel by tracking their money as it was laundered through a US horse racing enterprise.
Ahead of the debut of Rebel Moon — The Director’s Cut debuting this August, Netflix has whipped up a red band trailer that — compared to the film’s multi-hour runtime — feels like exactly the right amount of Zack Snyder you should consume in one sitting.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes hits Hulu on August 2nd, which means you can watch the entire franchise — dating back to the 1968 original — in one place.
Two new must-have Android apps
Plus, in this week’s Installer: a new space-biz doc on HBO, EA Sports College Football is back, and the silliest Apple Watch accessory ever.
The streaming music service has launched a new Parental Guide detailing its tools for managing your kids’ listening habits as well as its efforts to keep the platform safe.
Spotify’s actual parental controls are limited to filtering out explicit content and controlling the playback of certain artists. For a fully curated experience, you’ll need to spring for Spotify Kids, which is part of the Premium Family package.
[www.spotify.com]
As CEO David Zaslav looks for ways to improve WBD’s financial situation, sources tell the Financial Times that he’s considering separating WBD’s streaming and movie business from its ailing legacy TV networks — a move that would sequester the new company from a mountain of debt.
[Financial Times]
In Netflix’s earnings report today, the streamer says bundling with other services like Disney Plus and Max “limits the benefit” to Netflix:
We haven’t bundled Netflix solely with other streamers like Disney+ or Max because Netflix already operates as a go-to destination for entertainment... This has driven industry leading penetration, engagement and retention for us, which limits the benefit to Netflix of bundling directly with other streamers.
When asked about bundling with competitors on Decoder in June, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said “never say never.”
While Apple TV Plus has previously dabbled in the movie licensing game to supplement its lineup of original projects, Bloomberg reports that talks are underway with other studios that could lead to the streamer looking a little differ (and perhaps more like Netflix) in the near future.
Though it seemed like the Russo brothers were ready to put the Marvel Cinematic Universe behind them, the duo are in early talks to direct both Avengers: Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars according to The Hollywood Reporter.
There will be plenty of traditional television series like Shōgun and The Bear in the running at the 76th Emmys in September. But given how many Netflix, HBO, Apple TV Plus, Disney Plus, and Amazon projects were just nominated for awards, this year’s competition seems like it could easily go to the streamers.
[The Hollywood Reporter]
The Disney CEO, along with Willow Bay, has purchased a controlling stake in NWSL club Angel City FC at a value of $250 million, which the team says makes it “the most valuable women’s sports team in the world.” (The club is no stranger to celebrity owners, with founders like Alexis Ohanian and Natalie Portman.) Now we sit and wait for the inevitable docuseries on Disney Plus.
Netflix announced it’s adding a slew of AMC shows on August 19th. They include Preacher, The Terror, Into The Badlands, and the first season of the extremely good Interview With The Vampire. These shows used to be sequestered on AMC Plus, requiring yet another subscription fee to watch. But their Netflix arrival shows cross-platform cooperation ain’t just for Xbox and PlayStation anymore.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Disney is trying to make its streaming platforms work and feel more like Netflix. For example:
New features in the works at Disney include a more-personalized algorithm to power content recommendations, customized promotional art for new shows and movies based on subscriber’s tastes and usage history, and emails sent to viewers who stop watching in the middle of a series reminding them to finish, according to people familiar with the matter.
There’s lots more in the full story.
That’s a new limited series coming to Netflix from Haley Z. Boston and Upside Down Pictures (the production company launched by Stranger Things co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer).
“According to the logline, the series will follow a bride and groom in the week leading up to their ill-fated wedding,” says Netflix. “And obviously, it’s not a spoiler to share that not all goes right with the nuptials.”
Though it’s smaller than previous waves, Deadline is reporting that Warner Bros. Discovery is laying off another round of employees across its “production, business affairs and finance” arms as it continues to find ways to cut its spending.
Though there isn’t all that much new to see in Deadpool & Wolverine’s latest trailer, it features our best look yet at the film’s live-action takes on what seems to be the Deadpool Kid (a cowboy variant) and Lady Deadpool (a woman named Wanda with a sick-ass ponytail.)
We all knew the Stranger Things kids would look a bit older for the show’s fifth and final season, but seeing them all back in Hawkins High in this new behind the scenes video really emphasizes how the show’s last chapter can’t get here fast enough.
A supercheap Android phone with looks to spare
Plus, in this week’s Installer: Samsung’s first smart ring, Diggnation’s reunion show, a new Apple TV sci-fi show, and much more.
Fantasmas’ vision of the future is a dystopian dreamland
In Julio Torres’ series Fantasmas, survival in the future is an intricate, corporate-owned game of feeding your identity to the machine.
As explained by Front Office Sports, the NBA is waiting to see if TNT parent Warner Bros. Discovery will try to match any part of the reported $76 billion in offers from NBC, ESPN, and Amazon.
WBD’s (not-HBO) Max could try to match Prime Video, but with a smaller audience than Amazon’s service, matching might not be enough.
If you’re a fan of Hallmark’s Christmas movies, that is: the company is launching a streaming service, Hallmark Plus, in mid-September, Deadline reports.
The service, which will cost $80 per year, will feature shows like Finding Mr. Christmas, a reality show where 10 men will compete to earn a role in a 2024 Hallmark holiday movie.