The Most Exciting Streaming Services in 2020

Netflix started its online video streaming service back in 2007, a major step away from its original business of renting out movies on DVD by snail mail. A year later, its first competitor emerges – Hulu, the service backed by several major broadcast and cable channels, filled with content launched soon after it was broadcast on the “traditional” channels. In the coming years, Netflix continues to expand internationally, proving to the world that online streaming is, indeed, a viable business model. In 2016, it goes almost worldwide – the number of its subscribers starts to grow exponentially, and so does its content library filled with an ever-increasing number of “originals”. And this was about the time when other major media groups have started craving for a slice of the massive online video streaming market.

Last year, we’ve seen Disney launch its own streaming service called Disney+ and announce a new direction for Hulu, the service it bought together with Fox, and we’ve also seen Apple break into the market with its Apple TV+, both of them with their own lineup of original programming. And this year, we have more of the same. Netflix’s supremacy is threatened both by smaller services like the mobile-first streaming content provider Quibi and others backed by big names in the media industry. Here are the ones that will become – or have already become – available this year.

HBO Max
WarnerMedia Entertainment, the media conglomerate behind HBO, Cinemax, TNT, and other brands, has decided to launch a brand new streaming service aside from HBO Go. Called HBO Max, the service has exclusive, original content along with Warner properties and third-party content to cover all bases.
HBO Max will have content of all genres, including that from the now-defunct niche service “DC Universe”. Among the most notable pieces of content, we find documentaries like On the Record, about the harassment cases involving hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, competition shows like Craftopia, Looney Tunes cartoons, and many others.
One of the most eagerly awaited pieces of content heading to HBO Max is the infamous “Snyder cut” of the 2017 superhero feature Justice League, set to be released sometime next year.
HBO Max has launched on May 27 in the US and some US territories and will go international next year.

Peacock
NBCUniversal is another major media brand that wants a slice of the pie – and it has the content to pull it off. Its own streaming service called Peacock has already launched in the US – right now, it is only available for US residents with an Xfinity cable and broadband subscription, with rollout to others coming on June 15. There’s no word yet on international availability.
Peacock’s lineup of original programming is impressive, to say the least. Among others, it will feature the TV adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World, a new story in the Battlestar: Galactica franchise, the revival of the classic sitcom Saved by the Bell, talk shows, game shows, docuseries, reality shows, and Psych 2: Lassie Come Home, a sequel to the big-screen version of the popular detective comedy series Psych.

Discovery
Discovery Channel is one of the best-known documentary channels in existence – and the BBC is the other. The two have joined forces to bring their best content online in a streaming service that will bring Shark Week and Planet Earth, MythBusters, and Blue Planet under the same virtual umbrella.
The deal that allows the two channels to intertwine their content was signed last spring, and the service is expected to go global sometime this year, sating your hunger for the best docuseries and reality shows you can imagine.