Which streaming service wins our 2024 Streamer of the Year award?
Which streaming service wins our 2024 Streamer of the Year award?
When considering all factors, there’s one streamer that clearly stands apart from the rest.
Looking back on 2024, there were some pretty big updates at major streaming services. From Prime Video’s ad rollout to the rash of new features introduced to Peacock for the Olympics, most of the top services saw some major feature upgrades as well as subscriber growth. So when trying to determine which streamer had the best 2024, there were a lot of factors to consider, including price changes, subscriber growth, new features, and new content. We’ll run through our subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) winner, a runner-up, and a free Streamer of the Year as well below!
Which services are our 2024 Streamers of the Year?
SVOD Streamer of the Year: Netflix
Netflix takes The Streamable’s Streamer of the Year award for 2024. The service grew from just over 260 million customers to start the year to nearly 283 million as of the end of the third quarter. That growth of more than 20 million customers in three quarters easily puts most other streamers to shame.
But beyond the raw customer numbers, the other major factor in Netflix’s favor is the increasing selection of live events available on the streaming giant. To be sure, other streamers have also made significant content updates over the course of the year, but nothing like the inventory of live programming on Netflix. The streamer has staged live comedy specials, celebrity boxing matches, and even NFL games this year, and though some of those events experienced major technical issues, the platform is full steam ahead with plans to stream live episodes of “WWE Raw” every week starting in January 2025.
Netflix also had some major traditional TV and movie releases in 2024 as well, from new seasons of “Bridgerton” and “Squid Game” to its original film “Carry-On,” which is likely to crack its all-time Top 10 movies list, and everything in between. Netflix continues to draw billions of global viewing hours with its original and licensed content, augmented by the fact that its subscriber base is so much larger than everyone else’s.
When trying to determine the Streamer of Year, there is also price to consider. While it seemed that every other streaming service on the market raised prices over the course of the year, Netflix actually kept its domestic subscription rates consistent throughout the year. Its ad-supported Standard with Ads tier is still the cheapest among the top services at just $7 per month.
All of these factors add up to a clear Streamer of the Year winner. There are plenty of other services that took big strides over the course of the year, but Netflix is far and away our top service of 2024.
Netflix
Netflix is a leading subscription-based video streaming service that offers on-demand access to an extensive library of over 3,000 movies, 2,000+ TV shows, and a growing collection of acclaimed Netflix originals. Renowned for producing groundbreaking content, Netflix has become a cultural powerhouse with hit originals like “Stranger Things,” “Wednesday,” “Squid Game,” “The Crown,” “Tiger King,” “Bridgerton,” “The Witcher,” and “Black Mirror.”
Runner-up: Disney+
Though Disney+ did institute aprice increase for the third year in a row in 2024, it was under careful consideration for Streamer of the Year.
The amount of new content introduced to Disney+ over the course of the year vaults it into the second spot. That starts with the addition of programming from Hulu, which made most of the original TV shows and movies from Disney’s general entertainment service available to stream within the Disney+ app.
Just this month, the Disney+ library was augmented again with live sports and on-demand content from ESPN+. While some of the content now available on Disney+ is only accessible for bundle subscribers, Disney is clearly working towards eventually uniting all of its streaming content under a single flagship service. While there is no telling when that will happen or how that will work, the philosophy of lowering the friction and confusion that customers experience when trying to find and watch streaming titles is a step in the right direction. .
Disney added more than 10 million global streaming customers for all of its services during the year, not accounting for overlap caused by the Disney Bundle. It also achieved net profitability with its streamers for the year, and the arrow is definitely pointing up for Disney+, even if it couldn’t quite capture our Streamer of the Year award.
Disney+
Disney+ is a video streaming service with over 13,000 series and films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, The Muppets, and more. It is available in 61 countries and 21 languages. It is notable for its popular original series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Loki,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor.”
Free Streamer of the Year: Roku Channel
Roku finished its third quarter with 85.5 million streaming households and continues to be one of the most popular free streamers out there. It offers hundreds of live channels, as well as thousands of on-demand titles, and continues to produce some of the most original shows and movies of any free service.
The Roku Channel also features an impressive array of sports, from a new version of the “Good Morning Football” show that talks all things NFL to live MLB games thanks to its acquisition of the MLB Sunday Leadoff package. Sports programming hubs on the service now guide viewers to their favorite league with ease, showing them all the free content related to that sport they can watch.
Other streamers like Plex and Tubi also made updates in 2024, but The Roku Channel’s continued excellence and additions of live sports make it our clear winner for free Streamer of the Year.
Roku Channel
The Roku Channel is a free, ad-supported streaming service that offers a broad mix of movies, TV shows, live linear channels, and original programming. Available to all viewers — not just Roku device owners — the service features licensed content from major studios alongside Roku Originals, which include exclusive series, movies, and specials previously produced for Quibi, as well as new original projects developed specifically for the platform.