It’s an inevitability. Instead of tuning into broadcasts, we’re going to be glued to streams – that is where TV is going and despite traditional broadcast putting up a good fight, the younger generation is one that’s grown up in the embrace of digital devices.
Take the Women’s Euros, for example. England’s win against Italy in the semi-finals averaged 8 million viewers, hitting a peak of 10.2 million across all devices, and was ITVX’s biggest day of 2025 with 17.2 million streams.
However, for the subscriber, there’s one bugbear that annoys me most, and has done ever since they launched.
None of them seem to remember what I’ve watched.
More of the same
Now, I’m going to contradict myself immediately by saying that, yes, video streaming services are aware of what you’ve seen. But for whatever reason, this does not translate to the content you’re recommended.
Let’s take Netflix as an example. I’ve been a subscriber for a very long time – probably ten years if not more. I’ve probably forgotten all the things I’ve watched, which I sometimes suspect Netflix is counting on, but nevertheless, I’ve seen things and I’ve seen a lot of them.
Taking a gander at the ‘Your Next Watch’ row, and I’m met with a lot of familiar titles. There are some in there that Netflix can’t know I’ve watched because I’ve seen them on other services – Orphan Black, Killing Eve were both on iPlayer. No harm, no foul.
Less impressive is that Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is on that row… a film I just finished (re)watching the day before on Netflix.
Then there’s Love, a series I finished watching a few months back (having been a lapsed viewer who hadn’t seen it since it first streamed). Nobody Wants This, another series that I finished watching a few months ago.
What else pops up on that list? Arrested Development, Breaking Bad (which I finished 10 years ago), Brooklyn Nine-Nine (finished that a few months back), Dexter, The Good Place, Arcane, F1: Drive to Survive – what are all these titles that I’ve watched on Netflix doing in a row that implies I should watch them as if it was for the first time?
Why can’t it be that as soon as I’ve seen them, Netflix checks a box and whisks it away so I don’t need to see it again.
They don’t really know who ‘you’ are
This gets me thinking. Are other streaming services doing a similar thing? I head to Disney+ and near the top is a ‘Recommended For You’ row and it takes 10 titles for me to scroll to something I haven’t seen (A Complete Unknown).
The majority of the rest of the titles is Marvel and Star Wars related, which is a little disappointing for a service of Disney+’s size that it’s recommending the most obvious titles.
Scrolling down the menu and looking at other rows and Justified is there – a series I finished in its entirety two weeks ago. There’s also Under the Banner of Heaven, Paradise, Murder at the End of the World, all series I’ve watched in the past year.
In the ‘Series For You’ category, there’s The Acoylyte, Extraordinary, Loki, Ashoka, X-Men 97, Shogun, Moon Knight, Secret Invasion, Wandavision – I’ve seen all these shows before.
I switched to Prime Video and Apple TV+. With Prime, there are The Boys, Gen V, Reacher, The Terminal List, Citadel, and The Peripheral; and what I struggle to understand is that some of these titles I’ve clicked on the ‘thumbs up’ icon but instead of being recommended similar titles, I’ve just been recommended the same ones.
Apple TV+ might be the best in this instance, but that’s only because it’s a service that doesn’t seem to care about curation or recommendations. It’s either here are some new titles, here’s what’s popular, here’s what’s new, and please, please someone watch the MLS.
Why is it that these services, which have so many titles available, seem to repeat themselves and present the same things over and over? Do I just watch the same stuff over and over? Does curation actually work on these services? I’m inclined to believe that it never really has.
Films and TV shows lost in the cracks
For all the terms and conditions I’ve glossed over and agreed to in signing away my digital life, none of these video streaming services seem to know ‘me’ particularly well. I see, for the most part, stuff I’ve already seen; forcing me to scroll to see more stuff… that I’ve already seen. At times, you’ve got to dig deep to unearth something new.
I’ve thought that music streaming services, while not perfect, have had an edge in terms of creating a digital version of ‘you’ and your ‘tastes’.
Spotify and Tidal have been pretty good in recommending songs for me to listen to – including songs I’ve heard years ago and forgotten about. Qobuz has gotten better at it in recent years, and Apple Music is good at it too. The curation and editorial content of those services create a closer, personal bond between you and the service.
It’s an area where video streaming services continue to lag. Films and TV aren’t just Marvel and Star Wars – there’s a lot of interesting stuff that I, and people younger than me, that never gets highlighted. That’s not going to be great in the long term.
