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Since its explosive rise in popularity, streaming content as a medium has changed significantly. Where once you might have been able to find the movies, TV shows, and documentaries you wanted to watch on one or two services, things are quickly growing more specialized. The current streaming landscape shows a shift in content lineups and pricing plans plus a trend of subscriber loss.
However, even as the streaming giants lose members, there may be something else to watch out for. Niche platforms like Crunchyroll, Shudder, and BritBox are among a few smaller platforms focused on specific categories, in the same vein as cable packages of the pre-streaming era. Anime, horror, and British television found their primary platforms. But the question remains: Where do you go if you want to watch documentaries?
Where to watch good documentaries
If you want to watch a nature documentary and perhaps enjoy the sound of soothing voices discussing birds, you may want to give the documentary-streaming service MagellanTV a try.
Magellan features a library of 3,000+ high-quality documentaries and series about nature, war, ancient history, science and technology, crime, mind and body, and culture, produced by some of the world’s best filmmakers.
If you have a specific niche you want to do a deep dive into, MagellanTV has exclusive playlists you can tackle. Some of the most popular playlists include Women in History, shark documentaries, and an entire eight-part series on black holes, but there are more to explore, and they update regularly. If you manage to stream the entire MagellanTV library, you’ll still have more to watch, as new content is added weekly.
All movies and shows are completely ad-free, and you can cast from an iOS device to a Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast, or smart TV. Conveniently, one account can be connected to five devices. You can try it out for a year at just $35.99 (reg. $59.88) or go all in to save 88 percent and sign up for a lifetime of documentaries.
What can you get out of a documentary streaming service?
Beyond giving you an opportunity to explore a specific interest in a high-quality, entertaining format, documentaries can perform a unique service. The potential positive effect of nature videos alone could be worthwhile as an investment for your personal mental health and emotional regulation. In 2016, PopSci reported on a study that found nature videos can make prisoners less violent. There are also health benefits from exposure to nature, and some of them can come from simply watching nature documentaries. If you can’t get outside, putting on an HD documentary (4K in the case of MagellanTV) that lets you experience it vicariously could have some of the same effects.
On a different scale, informative and positive programming can have a tangible effect on how people act. In 1975, the release of Jaws preceded a precipitous drop in shark numbers due to overfishing and hunting. In contrast, another study found that people feel better about sharks after seeing them swim while accompanied by upbeat music.
Nature documentaries are just one branch of the content offered on MagellanTV, but they’re an exciting one. You could also explore titles related to science and technology. Watch documentaries about climate change, human genetics, ships, AI, or a plethora of other topics in a constantly growing collection.
When compared to some of the streaming giants, MagellanTV may be small, but it’s a focused collection that has high-quality content filling its entire library. At any given time, the size of the full Netflix offering may be shifting, much like any of the big streaming services. However, some sources estimate this popular platform features roughly 3600+ movies and 1800 TV shows. Even if every one of those were a documentary or docu-series, it would only slightly outnumber the pieces of content on MagellanTV. Though Netflix may have some popular titles in their documentary stash, the overall quality of their documentary programming trends lower in audience rating, with an average IMDB rating of 7.4/10.
A documentary streaming service worth trying
A dedicated streaming platform that’s focused on documentaries could give you the chance to explore your niche interests with good-quality 4K content. It could also be a way to enjoy nature! You could experience the thrill of a detective hot on the case of a brutal killer, explore the depths of the ocean, or ponder the depths of the universe and the evolving technology that could teach you more about it. With new selections being added on a weekly basis, you’ll never run out of inspiring and informative content to enjoy.
Subscribers are obviously happy with the service, rating it 4.7 stars in the Apple App Store and 4.3 on Google Play. Verified user Gary raves, “This has to be the best streaming service for documentaries, in the entire web. The best part is that it’s updated on a very regular basis with new documentaries, so you have a never-ending stream of content.”
If you want to explore MagellanTV’s library, this is a great opportunity, thanks to a limited-time discount. Normally, a one-year subscription to MagellanTV would cost $59.88, but it’s on sale for $35.99. Other options include two-year, three-year, and lifetime subscriptions.
Prices subject to change.