Which Streamer Won 2023? A Ruthless Ranking of Who Reigned Supreme This Year (Plus, Vote for Your Favorite!)
We all spent plenty of time streaming our favorite shows in 2023… but not all streaming services are created equal.
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This year was another fiercely fought battle in the ongoing streaming wars, with king of the mountain Netflix fending off strong challenges from the likes of Hulu, Max, Disney+, Apple TV+, Prime Video, Paramount+ and Peacock. Some of the eight major streamers had their best years yet, while others fell further behind the pack. So we thought we’d pit them against each other in the ultimate streaming battle royale!
We’re taking stock of the whole year in TV and judging the eight major streamers on three criteria — their shows’ popularity (SP), critical buzz (CB) and overall cultural significance (CS) — and grading each on a 1-10 scale, totaling them up to arrive at a final score out of 30. And you might just be surprised to see who ranks where.
Read on to get our highly opinionated take on which streamer took home the gold medal in 2023, and which ones have a lot of work to do to catch up. And once you’re done, vote in our poll to tell us which streaming service you’d crown as champion this year.
8. Prime Video
Despite having Amazon’s mammoth resources backing it up, it was a rough year for Prime Video. Big shows like The Boys and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power sat on the shelf, which meant that the service had few breakout hits to point to. (Reacher’s impressive return this month came too late to salvage the whole year.) The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel signed off after five seasons, with nothing to replace it as a consistent Emmy contender. Citadel was a big-budget flop, and The Wheel of Time attracted a decent audience but didn’t make a dent culturally. Oddly enough, Amazon’s buzziest hit of the year was the prank comedy Jury Duty… which actually aired on Prime Video’s free sister station Freevee.
SP: 3 + CB: 2 + CS: 5 = Total: 10
7. Peacock
NBC’s streamer is still well behind its competitors in subscriber count (just 30 million, as of October) and is still looking for a buzzy signature hit to anchor its original programming. But Peacock did make some critical waves this year with the debut of the Natasha Lyonne detective show Poker Face, along with limited series Mrs. Davis. Plus, being the exclusive home of all things Bravo paid off when Vanderpump Rules hit the zeitgeist with #Scandoval. And hey, no one else has the final season of Suits, you know!
SP: 2 + CB: 5 + CS: 3 = Total: 10
6. Paramount+
CBS’ streamer rode the Yellowstone brand for all it’s worth this year (despite not actually having the rights to stream the OG Yellowstone), winning over audiences and critics with the spinoff 1923. This was also a strong year for the Star Trek franchise, with a crowd-pleasing final season of Picard and Season 2 of Strange New Worlds. Outside of those big brands, though, Paramount+ struggled to find its footing, earning mixed reviews for IP-driven reboots of Frasier and Fatal Attraction. The new merger with Showtime could bring some prestige sheen in the years to come — which is good, because this streamer barely makes a blip during awards season.
SP: 4 + CB: 3 + CS: 4 = Total: 11
5. Disney+
Just a year or two ago, Disney’s streamer looked poised to challenge Netflix for streaming supremacy, but this year has to go down as a disappointment. Its big shiny new Marvel show Secret Invasion bombed hard, and the third season of Star Wars offshoot The Mandalorian took some critical hits, though both brands later bounced back with Loki and Ahsoka. Plus, with a slew of cancellations, Disney+ has nearly given up on any non-Marvel and Star Wars original content, though Percy Jackson‘s recent success may make them rethink that strategy. Will the upcoming merger with Hulu make it more appealing or, like Max, just more watered-down?
SP: 6 + CB: 3 + CS: 8 = Total: 17
4. Max
The streamer formerly known as HBO Max scores high in critical acclaim thanks to celebrated HBO series like Succession and The Last of Us. But a clumsy rebrand into “Max” lumped all that high-end content in with reality show dreck from Discovery and TLC, badly diluting the brand. (Also, if you think HBO only produces high-quality shows, we have two words for you: The Idol.) Meanwhile, Max’s original shows took a backseat: With Hacks sitting 2023 out, it felt like more Max shows got cancelled this year than actually aired new episodes. HBO is still propping this one up, but it has its work cut out for it in 2024.
SP: 6 + CB: 9 + CS: 6 = Total: 21
3. Apple TV+
Don’t look now, but Apple TV+ is slowly but surely carving out a nice little niche for itself as a haven for classy, well-curated fare. Its signature hit Ted Lasso returned for a third (and final?) season, and that show’s producers struck dramedy gold again with Shrinking. Apple also confidently moved into sci-fi/thriller territory with Silo and Hijack, along with the big-budget Godzilla series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. It’s making awards-show headway, too, with 54 Emmy nominations this year. We’re still impatiently waiting for new episodes of Severance, though.
SP: 8 + CB: 8 + CS: 6 = Total: 22
2. Hulu
It’s about to become the sole property of Disney after a November sale agreement with Comcast, and Hulu is still a hot property indeed, rolling out new seasons of The Bear, Only Murders in the Building and Reservation Dogs this year that scored with fans and critics alike. Its next-day partnership with FX (Fargo, Snowfall) gives it a prestige boost, too, a la Max’s library of HBO series. Plus, it still boasts the best catalog of classic TV shows anywhere on streaming, adding favorites like Moonlighting and L.A. Law in the past few months. Here’s hoping it maintains this level of quality as it slowly merges with Disney+ over the next year.
SP: 7 + CB: 9 + CS: 8 = Total: 24
1. Netflix
It may have been a relatively quiet year for the streaming behemoth, with no new episodes of mega-hits like Stranger Things and Bridgerton. But even a down year for Netflix is still enough to race past its competitors, with dominant leads in subscriber count and time spent. It unveiled a new critical darling in BEEF while mining new hits like Bridgerton spinoff Queen Charlotte and One Piece. It’s established a strong foothold in comfort-food TV with Virgin River and Sweet Magnolias, and in reality TV guilty pleasures with Love Is Blind and Selling Sunset. It even found yet another true-crime obsession in Murdaugh Murders. Best of all, it managed to turn a decade-old cable legal drama, Suits, into the biggest streaming hit of the year — perhaps the greatest evidence yet that all the other streamers are still just playing for second place.
SP: 10 + CB: 5 + CS: 10 = Total: 25
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