This Is America’s Worst Streaming Service

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Nov 12, 7:30AM EST

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This Is America’s Worst Streaming Service — © simpson33 / iStock via Getty Images

Premium video streaming is in trouble. The growth of the wildly successful Disney+ has slowed considerably, Walt Disney company reported as part of its earnings. It posted a figure of 118.1 million subscribers. While that makes it among the largest in the world, new subscriber additions have almost disappeared. The company blamed the problem on fewer people being locked in their homes by the COVID-19 pandemic. Netflix, the industry leader, recently posted a similar slowdown.

There are two theories about the challenge the industry faces. The decline in COVID-19 cases has allowed people to return to theaters. The other reason could be that there is an increase in competition. More and more large media companies have decided to launch services of their own. The industry has become tremendously fragmented. Research demonstrates that the average American subscribes to four services. However, many more than that are available.

The quality of streaming services has also become an issue. The widely followed American Customer Satisfaction Survey looked at streaming services as part of its telecommunications study. The study was done between April 20, 2020, and March 29, 2021. The sample size was 37,907 people.

While streaming services continue to be favored over telecom services, that edge has started to disappear. The authors of the study commented: “While consumers still prefer streaming above all other telecom industries, its stranglehold on the segment is slipping as its lead over the next closest industry shrinks to just 3 points.” The quality scale runs from zero to 100.
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Some of the results are unexpected. The average service received a score of 74. Industry leader Netflix scored 75. The other leader in subscribers, Amazon Prime Video, posted a score of 74. Amazon’s video service is part of its Prime paid program for customers, which includes other perks such as free shipping of products bought at Amazon.com.

The streaming service with the best score is Disney+ at 78. While there is no exact reason given for this, Disney+ does have a tremendous movie library from Disney, Pixar, Star Wars and Marvel.

At the very bottom of the list is Crackle, a service few people have heard of. It posted a score of 68. It is owned by Chicken Soup for the Soul and was once a part of Sony.

These are the worst and best streaming services:

Disney+ (78)
Microsoft Store (77)
Twitch (Amazon) (76)
HBO (AT&T) (75)
HBO Max (AT&T) (75)
Hulu (75)
Netflix (75)
YouTube TV (Google) (75)
All Others (74)
Amazon Prime Video (74)
Apple TV App (74)
Google Play (74)
Starz (74)
CBS All Access (ViacomCBS) (73)
Vudu (Comcast) (73)
Apple TV+ (72)
AT&T TV NOW (72)
Showtime (ViacomCBS) (72)
Sling TV (DISH Network) (72)
Peacock (Comcast) (71)
Crackle (68)

Click here to read about the best movies you have never seen.
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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.