Study: Prime Video has best IMDb ratings
July 17, 2020
Research conducted by Cable.co.uk has found that Amazon Prime Video has the best original programming of the streaming services available in the UK, while Netflix has the better offering according to the audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.
Using IMDb, the average series rating for Amazon Prime originals was found to be 7.49, whilst Netflix was 7.11 and Apple TV+ 7.13.
Using Rotten Tomatoes however, Netflix originals were rated 80 per cent, higher than Amazon Prime’s 76 per cent.
The study was undertaken by the team behind UK broadband and mobile comparison site Cable.co.uk, who compared the original programming of Netflix and Amazon Prime. The team looked at the original programming of the streaming sites since 2018, analysing the average IMDb score of all English-speaking shows, as well as the average Rotten Tomatoes.
It was found that overall, in the past two years, Amazon Prime had the highest-rated original shows according to IMDb, scoring a 7.49 out of 10 on average. Comparatively, the average rating for Netflix originals was 7.11. When looking at Rotten Tomatoes’ average audience score however, Netflix’s original shows scored a higher rating than Amazon Primes: 79.74 per cent compared to 76.47 per cent.
Disney+ and Apple TV+ were also looked at as part of the study, but were discounted from the ranking because of the low number of original shows, or the low number of ratings. Incidentally, Apple TV+ originals had an average IMDb score of 7.13 and Rotten Tomatoes score of 83.8 per cent, while Disney+ had an IMDb rating of 7.6 for its own programming.
The annual cost of a Netflix subscription (for its standard tariff) works out at £107.88 per year, compared to Amazon Prime Video’s cost of £79. Broken down to what that means in terms of the amount of original programming per year – for Netflix it’s £1.42 per original show, and £5.27 for each original Amazon Prime Video series.
Netflix was the best option for Kids & Family shows, with an average rating of 6.91, compared to Amazon’s 6.86 and Apple’s 6.4.
The highest-rated original programme in the past two years belonged to Netflix, with David Attenborough’s Our Planet scoring an impressive 9.3 out of 10. This was closely followed by Amazon Prime’s documentary Harmony with A.R. Rahman, which is rated 9.2.
Commenting on the research, Dan Howdle, consumer telecoms analyst at Cable.co.uk, said: “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. 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: if you go by IMDb then it says Amazon Prime is better, whilst Rotten Tomatoes fans will tell you it’s Netflix.”