For the price of a CD or a DVD per month, music- and video-streaming services offer a nearly infinite amount of content at your fingertips on any device.
We asked you, our readers, to rate the live and on-demand streaming services that are enabling so many of you to cut the cable TV cord—but not the internet connection. For the first time, we also asked you about online music services, which are changing the way so many of us discover music and listen to our favorite tunes. Read on to find out which services your fellow readers say you should choose (and avoid).
Music Streaming Services
The most popular music-streaming service in the world (with 108 million paying users) is our readers' pick as well. No service was more likely to be recommended to others than Spotify. In fact, paying users of Spotify like it even more than those using it for free.
Pandora's free service helps you build internet radio stations galore, all tailored to your musical tastes. Other services offer similar functionality but according to our readers, no one else does it as well.
Music-streaming services accounted for 80 percent of the recording industry's revenues in the first half of 2019, far outpacing digital downloads and physical media sales (Take that, vinyl!), according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). PCMag readers have embraced these streaming services and are generally quite happy with them, but two services stand out above the rest and earn Readers' Choice Awards: Spotify, which our readers rated highest among paid music services, and Pandora, which was our readers pick for best free service.
There are primarily three types of paid music-streaming services. There are those like Apple iTunes, which let you purchase individual songs and albums. There are services like Pandora Plus, which give you ad-free access to music stations (where you don't pick all the songs). And there's the dominant category—subscription services that, for less than the cost of purchasing an album per month, let you choose whatever you want to play from a catalog of millions of songs and albums. That category is lead by Spotify.
Spotify tied with Google Play Music for the highest overall satisfaction rating—8.8 on a scale from 0 (extremely dissatisfied) to 10 (extremely satisfied), but it bested Google and all other competitors in likelihood to recommend (with a 8.9), which is a very important measure of customer satisfaction. One respondent told us, "As a music lover, Spotify has literally changed my life. I love it. I recommend it to people all the time. I can listen to almost anything instantly wherever I am."
Occasionally, certain artists will choose to make their content exclusively available on one particular service or even boycott a service, but in general, all of the services have vast libraries and survey respondents were very happy with the selection on all them. Spotify, Apple Music, Apple iTunes, and Google Play Music all received ratings of 9.0 for satisfaction with music selection; Sirius XM was right behind at 8.8.
Apple Music is Apple's streaming service while iTunes (or the Music app on macOS Catalina) is where you go if you want to buy individual songs or albums to own beyond the monthly subscription. Google has announced that it will be transitioning Google Play Music users to YouTube Music Premium in the not too distant future, which is why we didn't give Google Play Music an award despite a very high overall rating.
It's interesting to see the range of results on satisfaction with cost given that all of the streaming services that let you pick your songs charge the same thing: $9.99 per month for an individual membership and $14.99 for a family membership, typically supporting up to six users. If you're a student or in the military, you can usually get a cheaper subscription. Despite the identical pricing, Google Play Music came out on top with satisfaction with subscription cost at 8.3; at the bottom is Sirius XM, which charges between $8 and $21 a month for a subscription (unless you beg and plead or threaten to leave) and got a rating of 6.2.
Among free services, Pandora (which was purchased earlier this year by Sirius XM) was the only one to receive an overall satisfaction rating of 8.0 or higher, with an 8.3. The company also had the highest likelihood to recommend rating at 8.7. The free version of Spotify's rating for satisfaction with music selection beat Pandora, but just barely: 8.6 to 8.5.
Amazon Music had a better rating in satisfaction with customer service, but Pandora scored top marks in the free category on satisfaction with setup, reliability, and ease of use. If you're not willing to pay, Pandora is where you should stream. That said, overall, people who pay for other services were happier.
For more, read The Best Online Music Streaming Services.
Live TV Video Streaming Services
YouTube TV's satisfaction ratings show that there's at least one live TV video streaming service that's got what it takes to get you to give up your cable box.
As one PCMag reader noted: "I have converted most of my extended family to YouTube TV. The user interface is amazing, and pricing unbeatable when considering elimination of DVR and box fees. Fantastic having no cable box!"
It seems that live TV video streaming services have come of age, or at least one of them has. Google's YouTube TV, our Readers' Choice Award winner (and our Editors' Choice), received satisfaction ratings that you'd expect from a reliable and easy-to-use service that's valued by its customers. The same can't necessarily be said of all of YouTube TV's competitors.
As the category's name implies, live TV video streaming services let you watch what various channels are currently broadcasting. The selection of TV channels varies by provider and package, just as it does with traditional cable company offerings.
PCMag readers are clearly trying these services on for size. Eight services received at least the requisite number of responses to be included in our analysis. YouTube TV came out on top in nine of our 10 satisfaction categories, including the most important measures—overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend, both of which received ratings of 8.3. Sony's PlayStation Vue service received ratings of 8.0 on both of these measures, making it the only other company to earn marks of 8.0 or higher for overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend.
The only category for which YouTube TV didn't come out on top was satisfaction with subscription fees, where it earned a 7.1 for its $50-per-month cost. Hulu with Live TV, which starts $45 per month and includes access to Hulu's on-demand programming, rated the best at 7.3. Pluto TV earned a 9.4 on this measure, but it's a free service so that's no surprise.
Live TV streaming services are often seen as a way to loosen your cable company's grip on your wallet—and they can certainly help you do that—but they may not save you money. You're just paying the fee to a different provider.
Switching to one of these services is often referred to as "cord cutting," but you'll still need to pay your ISP for a fast internet connection over which you stream programs, unless you stream everything over your mobile phone connection, which can get costly. You may also have to buy a streaming device such as a Roku or Amazon Fire TV, although that's a one-time cost that should last you several years.
Live TV streaming may save a few bucks, but you'll quickly discover that another major benefit is the ability to watch on a variety of devices, wherever you are. More than half of respondents watch on their PC or smartphone and 45 percent also watch video on a tablet.
Channel selection is critical when choosing a live TV streaming service. Don't get caught up in the number of channels offered—focus more on whether the service offers the channels you want to watch. If local news is important to you, make sure the service offers local stations. YouTube TV came out on top for satisfaction with channel selection at 8.5; PlayStation Vue had an 8.2 and Sling TV had the lowest rating: 7.0.
Reliability is also extremely important. You don't want to find out that you can't watch the big game because your live TV streaming service is down. YouTube TV had the highest reliability rating with an 8.6. Only Pluto TV (8.2) and Hulu (8.0) also rated at least 8.0. Spectrum TV Essentials received the lowest mark on this measure: 6.7.
Spectrum TV Essentials and Comcast Xfinity Stream represent these cable companies' attempts to woo customers back with their own streaming offering. Not surprisingly, users of these services didn't rate them very highly. Xfinity Stream received an overall satisfaction rating of 7.3 while Spectrum TV Essentials brought up the rear on this measure at 6.6. AT&T TV Now, which used to be called DirecTV Now, finished just ahead of Spectrum with a 6.7. AT&T's recent announcement that it's going to increase TV Now prices (again) isn't going to win any hearts, either.
For more, read The Best Live TV Streaming Services.
On-Demand Video Streaming
You may not know Acorn TV unless you're a real Anglophile, but this streaming service is providing great programming from across the pond at a great price, according to our readers, earning it very high satisfaction ratings and our Readers' Choice Award.
There's an embarrassment of great programming available today to watch on your TV, computer, smartphone, or tablet. Many of the shows are coming from streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu, as well as premium content providers such as HBO and Showtime, but according to PCMag readers, no service is providing a better experience than Acorn TV, which offers a variety of shows from Britain and other foreign markets to customers in the US and Canada.
We'll be doing a review of Acorn TV soon. From readers, Acorn TV received higher satisfaction ratings than the big boys, or anyone else for that matter, for overall satisfaction (9.1), likelihood to recommend (9.0), and five of the six other categories in which it received enough responses.
The only category in which Acorn TV didn't rate best was satisfaction with movie selection, but its rating of 7.6 was as good as anyone except Vudu, a movie-oriented service, which received a 9.0. Netflix and Amazon Prime Video also received ratings of 7.6 for satisfaction with movie selection. It's hard to make people happy with any selection of films, apparently.
Acorn TV received the highest marks in the roundup for satisfaction with TV show selection at 8.7. Among Acorn TV's most popular shows are Doc Martin and Midsomer Murders mysteries. As one respondent said, "The content is interesting and intelligent. Good dialogue and interesting stories, unlike dumbed down bang bang I'm cool US TV."
Clearly tastes vary as the highest rated service for access to exclusive content is CBS All Access (8.8), which to date has been the exclusive streaming provider for The Big Bang Theory, plus the only place to find The Good Fight and Star Trek: Discovery. CBS finished just ahead of Netflix and HBO, both of which were rated 8.6 for exclusives. (Acorn did not receive enough responses to the exclusive content question.) Despite these high ratings for CBS, the service finished last in overall satisfaction with a 7.9.
Unlike with music and live TV, it isn't unusual to select more than one on-demand video-streaming service, plus it's easy to start and stop subscriptions as content becomes available that you want to see. Still, you want to feel like you're getting good value for your dollars, and readers told us they felt Acorn TV delivered the best value with a satisfaction with subscription fees score of 8.8 (Acorn charges $6 per month or $60 per year). Amazon Prime Video, which is included with Amazon Prime for $119 per year or as standalone service for $13 per month, finished right behind Acorn on this measure with an 8.3. HBO, which is available through cable TV packages, streaming media apps, and add-ons to other streaming services, generally costs $15 per month—and finished dead last in satisfaction with subscription fees at 6.3. That's a full point behind CBS, the next lowest rated provider.
The on-demand video-streaming market may look very different the next time we visit this category. Apple TV+ and Disney+ arrive in November, while HBO Max and NBCUniversal's Peacock service arrive in 2020. (Read about them all in The New Streaming Giants Explained.) These services will have exclusive access to programs that were previously available through other providers. For example, Netflix is losing Friends to HBO Max and The Office to Peacock.
When we asked our readers which of these new services they're most likely to use, Disney+—which will feature content from Disney programming as well as Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic—got twice as many votes as anyone else…except None of the Above. Time will tell.
For more, read The Best Video Streaming Services.
The PCMag Readers' Choice survey for Music and Video Streaming Services was in the field from September 23, 2019 through October 14, 2019. For more information on how our surveys are conducted, read the survey methodology.
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