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.