The State of Streaming 2025: An Anglophile's Guide to What's Streaming Where

It's January 2025, which means the third decade of the 21st century is officially halfway over. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the platform launch that arguably kicked off the streaming revolution: YouTube. Yes, YouTube; the streaming platform was the initial way pirating TV series commercial-free became mainstream, which became the impetus for the launches of Hulu and CBS All Access, inspired Netflix to start streaming its rentals instead of sending DVDs through the mail and continues to be the real winner of the streaming wars, with a 10% share of all global viewership.

This year will also mark eleven years since Netflix launched House of Cards, an attack designed to disrupt the entertainment world that successfully wrecked one of the most successful American industries of the 20th century. However, the landscape is finally settling, and while at least a third of the streaming services currently scraping by are overdue to be sent to that great server cloud in the sky, it is more evident than ever which are here to stay and which deserve your hard-earned dollars the most.

In fact, for the first time since the streaming wars peaked in 2019-2020, and all the major studios attempted to launch services, we can safely narrow the streamers Anglophiles need to have to a surprisingly reasonable number. Let's run down the Big Five Streaming Services every lover of British television should have permanently on their home screen, which services are worth keeping as part of a round-robin churn every couple of months, and which aren't worth the pixels they inhabit.

Netflix isn't just the most obvious winner of this massive realignment within the entertainment landscape it helped wrought; it's not done yet. Not content with merely upending scripted television and feature films before recognizing the need to compete in the unscripted spaces and flooding the zone with more reality TV than anyone could possibly need, 2025 will be the year Netflix comes for the last tentpole still holding up cable and broadcast TV: Live Sports. The successful Christmas 2024 NFL double-header (plus the Beyonce Bowl Halftime show) finally showed the streaming service is ready for primetime, and woe to those who still measure from that yardstick.

But while the most significant story will be Netflix taking the WWE and the NFL global and how much damage that will inflict on the American competition, Netflix's global takeover also means it will bring loads of U.K.-produced content as it tries to mount an assault on the BBC and ITV. From the biggest ratings successes in 2024 hailing from the streaming service's U.K. division to competing in the New Year's Day ratings derby with Missing You, Netflix continues to be one of the streaming services for Anglophiles.

Here's a rundown of just some of what we expect to arrive in 2025 on Netflix: 

• The Thursday Murder Club
• The Woman In Cabin 10
• Adolescence 
• How to Get to Heaven from Belfast
• Grown Ups
• Department Q 
• Lockerbie
• House of Guinness 
• Out of the Dust
• The Choice
• The Undertow
• The Witness
• Toxic Town

And returning favorites:

• Black Mirror Season 7
• Supacell Season 2
• The Gentlemen Season 2
• Black Doves Season 2
• The Diplomat Season 3
• Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2
• The Great British Baking Show Season 16
• The Twits
• Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man 

Plus, there's British-ish stuff like Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, The Witcher Season 4, and The Sandman Season 2. 

Apple TV+ has been humiliated into putting budget limits on its original content after five years of super-expensive projects have generated a string of high-profile flops, deeply under-watched and undermarketed series that should have been massive hits, the collapse of Ted Lasso, and whatever is happening with Severance. Meanwhile, Apple TV+ subscriber numbers are routinely beaten by FAST channels like Tubi. It has gotten so bad Apple is doing an old-school "free weekend" from January 3-5, 2025, the way HBO and Showtime used to do during the cable years to entice people into subscribing to the pay premium networks.

The good news is the belt-tightening won't start showing up on screen until 2026; until then, Apple TV+ seems determined to debut a new British series every six weeks, and we're going to ride this train until it hurls off the cliff. However, for viewers, Apple TV+ isn't worth subscribing to for one hour of TV a week. It is far better to have it as one of the services in the churn round robin: Subscribe for one for two months and catch up on the genuinely great limited series tucked away on the platform that debuted over the last couple of years in six-hour binges, and then move to something else.

After multiple failed attempts at launching a foothold for BBC programming on streaming in the U.S. via BBC Select, BBC America with AMC, and partnering with HBO Max, Auntie Beeb finally bit the bullet and admitted its best bet was to buy out ITV from their joint BritBox venture and make it a BBC product. The BBC wisely did not mess with success, keeping BritBox’s successful mix of co-production originals and exclusive high-profile British debuts and merely doubling the service’s capacity for the number of titles it could successfully handle marketing.

The result has been the first genuinely successful British TV-centric streamer, the kind of service Anglophiles have wanted to see since we all learned how to VPN iPlayer. BritBox may still be lumped among the “specialty niche streaming services,” but the competition should start taking it seriously, and you should subscribe asap.

New series confirmed to be arriving on BritBox in 2025:

• A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story 
• Lost Boys & Fairies
• Douglas is Cancelled
• Travels with Agatha Christie & Sir David Suchet
• Agatha Christie’s Towards Zero
• Ludwig
• I, Jack Wright 
• Outrageous
• Lynley
• Riot Women
• Death Valley
• Code of Silence

And returning favorites:

• Karen Pirie Season 2
• The Cleaner Season 3
• Blue Lights Season 3
• Father Brown Season 12 & Sister Boniface Mysteries Season 4
• Death in Paradise Season 14 & Beyond Paradise Season 3
• Vera Season 14/Vera: Farewell Pet
• Silent Witness Season 28
• 2025 EE BAFTA Film Awards & 2025 BAFTA Television Awards

Max is still one of the most subscribed-to streaming services, mainly riding on the coattails of thirty years of HBO prestige programming. (The irony that the bulk of its subscribers are hardcore HBO people when their fool of a CEO tried to de-HBO it should not be overlooked.) However, unless you are the type who is all about Wizarding World-themed cooking shows, Max isn't worth having for Anglophiles, as most of what it offers is weekly streaming of HBO programming, half of which are British-ish fantasy series, not actual solid British fare.

It's time to remember that Max hasn't earned the automatic subscription status most people give it and treat it like its CEO does, like something not worth investing in. Hold off on bothering with Max until The Gilded Age Season 3 sets a release date, and then get caught up on all the fantasy stuff between new episodes of the most ridiculous costume drama of the 2020s.

Of course, the best streaming service for Anglophiles (and the best deal in streaming, period) is PBS Passport. Not to diss the PBS App without Passport (they're the same app, y'all), which contains lots of free content for everyone. However, pledging at the $5/month level (or $60/year) to your local station gives you access to the full PBS app library known as PBS Passport, a streaming extra that includes most Masterpiece series, Walter Presents shows, and British content of all sorts. 

Moreover, 2025 will bring a brand new facet to the PBS world. Amazon will take the platform formerly used by its failed FAST streamer FreeVee and give it to public broadcasting for free, making it possible for local PBS stations across the country to live stream their broadcasts for the first time. These will slowly launch sometime after January 1 as the different locales sign on, but the wait will be worth it. And best of all, it's free.

We have a list already of the Top Shows coming to PBS in 2025, but here's a full accounting:

New series confirmed to be coming to PBS Passport in 2025:

• Miss Austen
• The Gold Season 1
• Patience Season 1
• The Puzzle Lady Season 1 
• The Forsythe Saga Season 1 
• Maigret Season 1 

And returning favorites:

• Funny Woman Season 2
• Lucy Worsley Investigates Season 2
• Marie Antoinette Season 2 
• Wolf Hall: The Mirror & The Light
• The Marlow Murder Club Season 2 
• Professor T Season 4
• Astrid Season 4 
• Vienna Blood Final Season 
• Miss Scarlet (sans Duke) Season 5
• All Creatures Great & Small Season 5
• Unforgotten Season 6 
• Grantchester Season 10
• Call the Midwife Season 14 

By rights, Peacock should be lumped in with the failing streaming services on their way out the door. In 2024, the streaming service disclosed it was losing $348M on the service, a massive improvement year-to-year but still jaw-dropping. However, the peacock has a secret weapon that most of its broadcast-based competitors don't: It's owned by Comcast, which pays for those losses via its cable and internet subscription monopoly. That war chest will allow Peacock to keep on losing money until it finally finds a way to turn profitable and maybe premiere a few hits.

Peacock's British cousin network, Sky Atlantic (also owned by Comcast), has obediently partnered with its American counterpart to co-produce shows, most disappearing into a memory hole as American viewers ignore them. However, Peacock does have one hit: The Traitors, the U.S. variation on the hit U.K. reality show. It also has Day of the Jackal, one of Sky's biggest hits of 2024. However, that's not nearly enough to subscribe monthly. Peacock is best left for the churn pile, with fans of Eurovision or the Euro playoffs subscribing to watch the live broadcasts and checking out the Day of the Jackal and The Traitors seasons they've missed in between.

Disney+ has had a lot of issues since its ultra-successful launch in 2019. The pandemic hamstrung the streaming service's first year. However, the real problem was its deeply family-friendly Americana vibe that kept some of its best programming relegated to Hulu in the States. Hulu, meanwhile, was (and still is) a complete mess, a Frankensteinian mishmash of next-day streaming for broadcast series from multiple sources, an original content maker that co-produces various shows with BBC 3, a Netflix competitor filled with library shows from across the globe, a place for all FX programming to stream, the dumping ground for anything considered ill-suited for Disney+, and a live TV app.

Neither of these services would be worth it solo: Disney+ for lack of content, Hulu for the inability to find anything. But subscribing to Disney+ with Hulu, effectively making the latter a tile within the Dsiney+ service, is a different story. Disney+'s far more streamlined layout makes Hulu's smorgasbord less overwhelming to navigate, and the combination of Disney+'s tiny set of high-profile British shows (Doctor Who, Bluey) plus all the British stuff on Hulu via its various sources makes this one worth it to Anglophiles to consider.

Here's what's coming to Disney+/Hulu:

• A Thousand Blows
• Black Ops Season 1
• The War Between The Land & the Sea
• Playdate

And returning favorites:

• Bluey
• Doctor Who Season 2/15/41
• Rivals Season 2
• Obituary Season 2
• Such Brave Girls Season 2

Plus, tons of British-ish favorites are coming, like Daredevil: Reborn, Andor Season 2, Alien: Earth, and Percy Jackson Season 1.

We're very proud of Starz for finally moving beyond Outlander and Outlander spinoffs with The Couple Next Door, the Channel 4 series that hails from the Walter Presents team. However, we're not expecting much from the service beyond that, though there is that Serpent Queen spinoff where Minnie Driver will star as Queen Elizabeth I in her own series — whether or not an entire season starring her character will work remains to be seen. (On the whole, it feels rather doubtful.) And Sweetpea has been renewed for a second season as well.

The lack of consistent British programming on Starz is the main reason we put it in the Churn pile, and we suggest waiting until close to the end of 2025 to subscribe for a month and catch up on whatever offerings it has.

If there's any justice in the universe, someone will rescue Acorn TV when AMC Networks collapses in the next 12-18 months. Considering the landscape, the little federation of niche streaming services has held up remarkably well and for far longer than most would have thought. But the only reason no one is talking about AMC's inevitable collapse is because no one notices when a copse of trees starts to collapse when Paramount+'s mountain of content collapses in an avalanche next door. When the latter's sale to Skydance closes in 2025, AMC will almost certainly be next; it's just a question of who buys it.

However, Acorn TV continues to be the one service AMC Networks has that's worth subscribing to, and the parent company's quiet pushing of content that debuted on failures like Sundance Now to Acorn after a suitable time has passed makes it the only one anyone really needs:

Here's what we know will land on Acorn TV in 2025:

• Art Detectives 
• Irish Blood
• Murder Before Evensong
• Sanctuary: A Witch's Tale Season 1 

And returning favorites:

• Harry Wild Season 4
• Hidden Assets Season 3
• Recipes for Love & Murder Season 2
• The Chelsea Detective Season 3
• The Madame Blanc Mysteries Season 4
• Gangs of London Season 3

Since Amazon's Prime Video forced commercials on everyone, paying for the service is no longer worth it; you might as well watch it like a FAST streamer, lumped in with Roku, Pluto, and Tubi. (I highly recommend all three FAST streamers to be app fixtures on your home screen. They're free!) 

Amazon's MGM+ is similar to Starz in that it's not worth subscribing to except for a month towards the end of the year. However, at this juncture, it's better to wait and see what Amazon does with its extraneous streaming service before making any decisions. Consider that in January 2024, we could not have foreseen that FreeVee would disappear and be replaced with live streams of local PBS stations nationwide.

Finally, Paramount+ is better placed on hold until Skydance's acquisition closes in 2025. Once the new ownership steps in, we'll get a better idea of its plans for the streaming service, which was close to attaining profitability until almost all of its programming was canceled to drive down spending ahead of the merger. Conventional wisdom says the service will probably be sold or shut down, and its programming will migrate elsewhere, but there's no timeline for that yet, and there won't be until the sale is complete.