With the new South Park special out, it's making me want to pay for Paramount+. The question is... should I?
As it stands, the best bang for the buck on a streaming service I have based on amount spent per hour watched is Discovery+ while the worst is Prime Video. If I were actually honest with the amount of time I spent watching D+, mostly rewatching BattleBots episodes, it would look even better. The weird outlier is Shudder, which I rarely watch, but is the most satisfying for what I get out of it. Watching the occasional The Last Drive In with Joe Bob Briggs is worth every penny. For every year that Prime Video has been a thing, I watch about two hours per year rather than some hours per month. Even worse, every movie I've wanted to watch on Prime is not included with the Prime subscription, but is a separate purchase, so I don't include that here.
So, it looks like the Paramount+ with Showtime bundle will definitely give me much more to watch, while HBO Max probably isn't worth it for me.
(edit note: added Sling and Dish for comparison)
(edit note: added D+/Hulu/ESPN+
| Service | Approximate Hours / mo | $/mo | $/hr watched | watched hrs/$ | What to watch |
| Discovery+ | 24 | $6.99 | $0.29 | 3.43 | BattleBots, Gold Rush, Deadliest Catch, old Unsolved Mysteries, various random things |
| Peacock | 12 | $8.33 | $0.69 | 1.44 | Blacklist, Resident Alien, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, SNL, handful of classics |
| Prime Video | 0.16 | $4.96 (as fraction of Prime) | $30.99 | 0.03 | Not much I like |
| Shudder | 2 | $5.99 | $3.00 | 0.33 | The Last Drive In, random things |
| Netflix | 20 | $13.99 | $0.70 | 1.43 | The home of the random |
| Paramount+ | 32 (est) | $9.99 | $0.31 | 3.20 | Quite a bit going on there |
| Paramount+Showtime | 36 (est) | $12.99 | $0.36 | 2.77 | A little more... |
| HBO Max | 8 (est) | $14.99 | $3.75 | 0.27 | Another place of random shows |
| Sling | 40 | $35 | $0.88 | 1.14 | Direct replacement for Satellite |
| Dish Network | 40 | $120 | $3.00 | 0.33 | Because you want more channels for the same price as cable, which you probably can't get anyways. |
| Disney+ / Hulu / ESPN+ | 4 | $19.99 | $5.00 | 0.20 | Archer reruns, Futurama reruns, Designing Women reruns, Golden Girls reruns, ABC news, the other late night Jimmy, and a whole bunch of other stuff that is available on Discovery+, Peacock, and Paramount+, and for ESPN+ my favorite sport - NOT AVAILABLE IN YOUR REGION |
| Hulu | 4 | $12.99 | $3.25 | 0.31 | Most of the above, but without the Disney+ and sportsball snark. |
As it stands, the best bang for the buck on a streaming service I have based on amount spent per hour watched is Discovery+ while the worst is Prime Video. If I were actually honest with the amount of time I spent watching D+, mostly rewatching BattleBots episodes, it would look even better. The weird outlier is Shudder, which I rarely watch, but is the most satisfying for what I get out of it. Watching the occasional The Last Drive In with Joe Bob Briggs is worth every penny. For every year that Prime Video has been a thing, I watch about two hours per year rather than some hours per month. Even worse, every movie I've wanted to watch on Prime is not included with the Prime subscription, but is a separate purchase, so I don't include that here.
So, it looks like the Paramount+ with Showtime bundle will definitely give me much more to watch, while HBO Max probably isn't worth it for me.
(edit note: added Sling and Dish for comparison)
(edit note: added D+/Hulu/ESPN+
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