My Streaming Setup: How to Watch TV Like The Streamable’s Content Director

I’ve been leading The Streamable’s content team for four years, and I’ve covered every streaming service available. I’m price-sensitive, so that’s always a priority for me. And I have a family that likes different kinds of content, so I have several services. If you’d like to copy my setup, I thought I’d share my choices.

Live TV: Sling TV

When it comes to live TV, I want news and sports. Sling offers those at better prices than any other option. If you can wait until the start of football season to sign up, you’ll usually get the best deal of the year with deep discounts for a multi-month agreement. Typically, Sling offers 50% off your first month.

With Sling TV, I can watch my most important channels: ABC, CNN, ESPN, Fox, MSNBC, NBC, and NFL RedZone. Sling doesn’t offer ABC, NBC, and FOX in every market, but I get them because I’m in the Chicago area. Sling also doesn’t offer CBS, but I’ll share my solution for that later in this article.

Unless you need a channel Sling doesn’t offer, it’s really the best choice for live TV. (I used to use YouTube TV, but the price is now too high for what you get. Fubo has some fun features, but its price is outrageous. DIRECTV STREAM is great, but Sling’s price is too good to ignore.)

Paid On-Demand: My Picks

Netflix is a must-have for most streaming fans and I’m no exception. Although I don’t watch it frequently, my wife and kids love it. The price is reasonable for the ad-free plan and you get a ton of content. If I’m bored, there’s always something there.

I’ve been a subscriber to Disney+ since Day One, but I’m very tempted to kill it off when my discounted rate expires. The price continues soaring and the service isn’t generating enough new content. While it was great when my kids were young, they’ve aged out of “Doc McStuffins” and “Toy Story.” They enjoy access to the Star Wars saga, but they’re still too young for Marvel movies.

Disney+ seems like a service set adrift. If you love the library, it’s a great choice. But if you crave a steady stream of new content, it’s a real disappointment.

I got Hulu at a steep discount with its annual Black Friday sale, but I really never watch it. It’s the only ad-supported streamer I pay for and the commercial breaks are excruciating. There are simply too many ads. My wife enjoys the Hulu content, but I’m inclined to let this one lapse unless there’s another great Black Friday deal.

Prime Video comes free with our Amazon Prime account, but I almost never watch it. There’s too much junk on the service and I refuse to sit through ads for that level of entertainment. If it didn’t come free with Prime, I wouldn’t pay for it.

Apple TV+ seems to come free all the time. My family has access to it, though I don’t think we’re paying for it outright. It usually comes bundled with some other Apple-related purchase. It’s a very nice service, but “Severance” is the only TV show that’s blown me away. I’d be happy letting this lapse after I watch season 2 in January.

Apple needs to turbo-charge its production pipeline or just sell the library to Netflix or something. There’s not enough here to justify the cost.

Services I Canceled

While I’ve tried nearly every streaming service, most of them are not worth the recurring subscription. Here are some of the services I cut loose.

Max probably has the best movie and TV lineup of any streamer, but it’s simply too expensive. The issue is that Warner Bros. Discovery isn’t generating enough new content to justify the price. I think every TV fan should subscribe to Max at some point. It has genuine masterpieces like “The Sopranos,” “The Wire,” “Deadwood,” “Game of Thrones,” and more. The movie library is amazing. But if I were going to subscribe again, I would just do a one-month binge of whatever I’m missing and then cancel again. You don’t need this service year ‘round.

While I really like Paramount+, I didn’t watch it enough to justify the cost. If you have young children, the access to Nickelodeon favorites like “PAW Patrol,” “SpongeBob SquarePants,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” and “Peppa Pig” make it a great choice. The price is fair, but Paramount+ suffers from the same issue as Max: not enough new content to justify an annual commitment.

My Favorite Free Services

While there are lots of great free services, my experience keeps sending me back to a handful of favorites: Haystack News, Kanopy, Pluto TV, and Tubi.

Let’s start with Kanopy. If you have a library card, you must download this app. It gives you access to really great movies and TV shows with no ads. As time has gone on, the selection keeps getting better.

You can watch everything from “Point Break” to the old “Addams Family” TV show to “Memento,” “Galaxy Quest,” “The Odd Couple,” “Hellboy,” “Spaceballs,” “Hoosiers,” “Rosemary’s Baby,” and much more. In fact, you’re probably paying for a streaming service that has movies and TV shows you could be watching for free with Kanopy. Not enough people know about it, but it’s awesome.

Most other free streamers require you to watch ads, but that’s not a huge problem with Tubi. The ads are fairly infrequent and they don’t last long (take note, Hulu). Tubi’s selection is just too good to pass up. They have lot of popular movies and obscure titles. If you’re new to streaming, Tubi is one of the easiest platforms to fall in love with.

Pluto TV has slipped a bit over time. It’s not innovating as much as its peers, probably because of all the chaos at parent company Paramount Global. If you need “background TV,” Pluto TV fits the bill with its huge lineup of virtual channels.

When I let my Sling TV subscription lapse during the summer, Pluto TV keeps me entertained and informed. The Pluto News channel mixes together segments from several free news channels. “Star Trek” reruns are always great, and there are channels for sitcoms, game shows, reality shows, and my beloved Rifftrax.

Most people don’t know about Haystack News, but it’s the best choice for staying connected to your local news. It’s a smart service that learns your preferences over time. I use it to see headlines from Chicago and my hometown in Michigan. I’d watch it more frequently, but the service doesn’t update as much as I’d like. Still, it’s worth checking a few times a day for a quick recap of the day’s news. The “popular” tab is great to see interesting, fun, or unusual stories from around the country.

Honorable Mention: PBS Kids

If you have preschool children, please download PBS Kids. It’s free and it offers ad-free episodes of fun educational shows like “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” “Wild Kratts,” “Arthur,” “Sesame Street,” and more. I recommend it to any new parent.

Pro-Level Add-Ons

While it takes a little setup time, Plex is my most-watched service. I have the “Plex Pass,” which is a one-time lifetime purchase that unlocks some unbelievable features.

Plex itself offers you access to 50,000+ ad-supported movies and TV shows. The service also gives you 1,100+ free-to-stream live TV channels.

Where Plex gets even better is that you can use it to stream videos, music, and photos from your computer’s hard drive. I can create the equivalent of a “private Netflix” that I share with family and friends. It’s great to share home movies with my family without having to do a private YouTube link.

Because I have Plex Pass, I can also record live TV from an antenna and store it on my hard drive forever. I’ve saved several years of Grammys and Oscars and Super Bowls - things you can’t watch today otherwise.

Plex Pass also gives you the great PlexAmp music player that can stream mp3s from your computer. I love the fact that I only needed to pay once and I get those services forever.

As I mentioned, I have an antenna to pull in my local channels. I run the antenna through a HDHomeRun box. That allows me to stream ABC, CBS, Chicago Sports Network, Fox, MeTV Toons, NBC, and PBS. Plex can access the antenna signal through the HDHomeRun, which is what allows me to watch and record TV for free forever after you buy the equipment. It’s a great savings hack.

Related: How This $110 Box Gives Me Free Legal Streaming TV Forever

My Equipment

I have several TVs, but only one of them is 4K. For that, I chose the Sony Bravia line. TV technology continues improving, so I wouldn’t recommend any one particular model. Just be sure to look at several and choose one that appeals to you. The most important thing to do is turn off “motion smoothing” when you first install the TV. Just listen to Tom Cruise:

I prefer the Apple TV streaming device for most of my TVs. It’s expensive, but I love its flexibility and smooth interface. With some of my TVs, I just use the included Android TV interface, but I find it clunky and annoying. I may have to buy some more Apple TVs to fix that.

For antennas, your perfect solution may depend on where you live, but we recommend these models to get started.

And, of course, I love my HDHomeRun box so I can stream the signal from my antenna to any device in my home.

Bottom Line

It’s important to audit your streaming lineup every few months to make sure you’re getting the best bang for your buck. It’s easy to forget what you’re paying for and end up wasting money. Don’t be afraid to cancel something! Some services will offer a discounted rate when you try to cancel. Otherwise, keep your eyes peeled for a sale down the road. Nearly every streamer besides Netflix will try a discount at some point in the year.

Happy streaming!