Best Streaming and Subscription Services For Books, Movies and TV
Oct 29, 2018
There are plenty of ways to get access to a huge variety of books, movies, and TV for a minimum of cost, and often entirely for free. The following are a few suggestions that could fit just about any budget.
‘Free’ TV Players
Assuming you already have a TV license, why not stretch what you have to pay to the max by taking advantage of the amazing variety of TV shows and films that you can access for no extra charge whatsoever? There’s the BBC iPlayer, All4, and Film4 from Channel 4, the ITV Hub, and UK TV Play, which has shows like Dave, Yesterday, Really and the Drama channel.
Both the BBC and Channel 4 have not just catch-up services but also an extensive variety of old TV shows you may have missed first time round, including every single episode of Father Ted and box sets of Luther and Blue Planet II. Film4 offers not just Hollywood blockbusters but plenty of niche viewing to suit just about every taste.
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Subscribing to Netflix, Amazon Prime or Now TV
All of these of these are available for free on a trial period, so it might be worth signing up to binge watch the likes of Breaking Bad or gorge on a glut of old movies. If you’re tempted to join up for a little longer, none of these will break the bank: the basic Netflix plan, for example, is only £5.99 a month, and Now TV £7.99. Amazon Prime starts at £5.99, but paying £7.99 will add their quick delivery service, the Amazon Kindle lending library and access to millions of songs ...
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Music
If you don’t mind the adverts, Spotify has a vast choice of listening material and is entirely free. As is Jamendo, whose entire catalog has been made available to you from the artists via the Creative Commons license, making it cost absolutely nothing to listen to a very broad range of stuff. And, of course, YouTube has a massive collection of free music, from Schuman to Slipknot.
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Books
Generally speaking, many works now regarded as classics (e.g. Pride and Prejudice and Moby Dick) are now out of copyright and therefore free to download (or at minimal cost), including the complete works of a number of great writers.
Setting the maximum price according to budget at the Amazon Kindle store can reveal a host of terrific reads at very low prices, starting, of course, at £0.00. You might also investigate Aldiko, a nicely presented online source of books with plenty for free or at very low prices, and ManyBooks.net, which has tens of thousands of completely free books in ebook format.
If you’re an Apple product user, you will have access to iBooks, which offers thousands of book bargains. Don’t forget that the iTunes store also has movies and TV shows for rent from as little as 99p each, as well as plenty of music bargains.