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Netflix Has the Most Original TV Shows, but Disney+ Shows the Best Originals

That's according to new counts of all the original shows on the streamers—726 of them!—with comparisons to how the programs rate on average at Rotten Tomatoes.

Eric Griffith
 & Eric Griffith Senior Editor, Features

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We talk a lot in this space about the quantity and quality of original programming on the major streaming services, and for good reason: We need all the content we can get (seriously, it's going to be highly weird in 2021 when the COVID-19 production delays finally lead to a dearth of shows and movies, and we get stuck with too much "reality TV" that's easy to make). That's why it's always fascinating to see a new take on it, such as WhistleOut's research into which service has the "best" content.

First, take in that stunning number of 726 original TV shows, the vast majority of which are, naturally, on Netflix—it has been cranking them out since House of Cards debuted in 2013. Still, that's a lot of TV shows in 7 years, almost 66 shows per year on average—not even counting the original movies. (Those numbers also include upcoming/announced shows going into 2021, so it's a little inflated.) Only Amazon Prime Video comes even close to as many shows, and it's not really that close, with only 91 originals. (Just launched HBO Max has 14 bringing up the rear, but Peacock is also brand new it has double the originals. So there, HBO.)

WhistleOut—a site that actually tries to help you pick a cell phone plan and SP, and such sites like to do research like this to get their name out there via sites like ours that can't resist a good infographic—also drilled down into the genre of the original shows. The "easy to make" stuff almost prevails—docuseries and reality TV competitions are less expensive and don't always have big star salaries involved. But they're behind the comedies, with 148 sitcoms and dramedies making up the actual majority.

Original Content by Genre Original Content by Genre

What genres are on top for each service? Comedies rule at Peacock and Hulu; docuseries are the majority at Amazon and Disney+; Apple TV+ so far favors dramas, HBO Max likes reality shows, CBS All Access is mostly sci-fi/fantasy (thanks, Star Trek!). And Netflix? Its majority of original programming is kids & family. To which my Go Go Cory Carson–addicted son can attest.

But the most important question, as always, isn't about how much, but how well. Looking at the overall ratings on the shows, WhistleOut gave each service a grade based on the median Rotten Tomatoes scores it had across all its shows. In that case, there's a clear winner: Disney+. Hulu (also majority-run by Disney now) is a close second.

(Note that if this sounds familiar, we've covered this territory before with Reelgood.com. But its counts were different (it didn't include upcoming shows), and it used ratings from IMDb, not Rotten Tomatoes.)

Who Has the Best Original Content? Who Has the Best Original Content?

Are you going to be unhappy with any of the streaming services? They all have a solid B- score at the very least, except for CBS, which is trending at 71 percent. That's probably also because of Star Trek (the ending of Picard sucked, yeah, I said it). But consider that Netflix managed that 84 percent against the competition while offering up exactly five times as many original TV shows as the next biggest competitor (Amazon). That's pretty impressive.

For more, read the full report at WhistleOut.

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About Our Expert

Eric Griffith

Eric Griffith

Senior Editor, Features

My Experience

I've been writing about computers, the internet, and technology professionally since 1992, more than half of that time with PCMag. I arrived at the end of the print era of PC Magazine as a senior writer. I served for a time as managing editor of business coverage before settling back into the features team for the last decade and a half. I write features on all tech topics, plus I handle several special projects, including the Readers' Choice and Business Choice surveys and yearly coverage of the Best ISPs and Best Gaming ISPs, Best Products of the Year, and Best Brands (plus the Best Brands for Tech Support, Longevity, and Reliability).

I started in tech publishing right out of college, writing and editing stories about hardware and development tools. I migrated to software and hardware coverage for families, and I spent several years exclusively writing about the then-burgeoning technology called Wi-Fi. I was on the founding staff of several magazines, including Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine. All of which are now defunct, and it's not my fault. I have freelanced for publications as diverse as Sony Style, Playboy.com, and Flux. I got my degree at Ithaca College in, of all things, television/radio. But I minored in writing so I'd have a future.

In my long-lost free time, I wrote some novels, a couple of which are not just on my hard drive: BETA TEST ("an unusually lighthearted apocalyptic tale," according to Publishers' Weekly) and a YA book called KALI: THE GHOSTING OF SEPULCHER BAY. Go get them on Kindle.

I work from my home in Ithaca, NY, and did it long before pandemics made it cool.

The Technology I Use

My first computer was a Laser 128, an Apple II-compatible clone with an integrated keyboard, matched with an eye-straining monochrome green monitor. I used it to type papers in college for other people for money...until I discovered the Mac SE in the college computer room. That changed my life. My first cellphone was a Samsung Uproar—the silver one with the built-in MP3 player from the Napster days (the pre-iPod era).

I use an iPhone 15 Pro hourly and an iPad Air infrequently (but I'm always in the market for a cheap Android tablet). I have a PlayStation 5 just to play Spider-Man, and several Windows machines, including a work-issued Lenovo ThinkPad. I talk to Alexa and Siri all day long. I do the majority of my computing on a 15-inch LG Gram laptop attached to a Thunderbolt hub to run a multi-monitor setup—I overdid it on the power needed to simply work from home.

I'm most at home in Microsoft Word after decades of writing there. More and more, I turn to services like Google Docs, using tools like Grammarly. I use Google's Chrome browser due to an addiction to several extensions I think I can't live without, but probably could. I use Excel extensively on data-intensive stories, but for chart creation, we've switched over entirely to using Infogram for interactive features that are hard to find elsewhere. I do a lot of graphics work for my stories, but limit myself to the free and amazing Paint.NET software to edit images.

I'm a firm evangelist for using the cloud for backup and syncing of files; I'm primarily using Dropbox, which has never failed me, but I also have redundant setups on Microsoft OneDrive, plus extra picture backups on Amazon Photos and iCloud. Why take chances? For entertainment, mine is a streaming-only household—my kid has never seen network TV and barely been exposed to commercials, thanks to Roku and Amazon Music. The house is peppered with smart speakers from Amazon for instant gratification and control of smart home devices like multiple Wyze cameras and Nest Protect smoke detectors. I've got accounts on all the major social networks, to my horror. I have a robot vacuum for each floor of the house. I want a 3D printer, but not sure what I'd use it for.

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