While Netflix is considered to have the best content among video streaming services in terms of audience ratings, Cable.co.uk. says that Amazon Prime Video offers the best original programming available in the U.K., according to its analysis of IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes ratings.
Cable.co.uk. is a broadband and mobile comparison website. It recently carried out an analysis of the ratings of streaming providers original programming since 2018, rating them on the average IMDB score of all of their English language content. In addition, it used the average rating data of movies and TV shows listed on Rotten Tomatoes. The analysis covered 204 Netflix shows, 39 from Amazon Prime, and 20 from Apple TV+, but did not include ratings from co-produced series, such as The Last Dance.
The study found that Amazon Prime’s original programming had the best average ratings overall, with a score of 7.49 out of 10. That compared with just 7.11 for Netflix originals.
Netflix fared better when looking only at Rotten Tomatoes’ average audience scores however, with a rating of 79.74% compared to just 76.47% for Amazon Prime. Cable.co.uk also looked at Apple TV+’s and Disney+’s original programming, but discounted them from the ranking due to the minimal number of shows they currently offer. That might be a point of contention, because Apple TV+ originals scored 7.13 on average on IMDB and 83.8% on Rotten Tomatoes. Disney+’s original programmes scored 7.6 on IMDB.
Netflix did at least secure the honour of having the highest rated overall programme on IMDB. David Attenbrough’s Our Planet took the top spot with a 9.3 rating, followed by the Amazon Prime documentary Harmony with A.R. Rahman, which scored 9.2.
The study also looked at the average cost of subscriptions to the above services, and found that Netflix costs £107.88 per year for the average user, compared to just £79 for Amazon Prime. However, when that amount is broken down in terms of the number of original shows and movies each service puts out, Netflix viewers are paying just £1.42 per original show, compared to £5.27 for each original Amazon Prime series.
“Streaming services have never had it as good as they have in the past few months, with record figures seen across the board, resulting in a need for good broadband to stave away dreaded buffering,” said Dan Howdle, a consumer telecoms analyst at Cable.co.uk. “Indeed, the popularity was such that streaming providers had to lower their streaming quality to reduce the strain on internet service providers. However, the big question of ‘which has the best original programmes’ still remains up for debate.”
