Showtime now available to cord cutters for $11 a month, or less

[Dirk Libbey]

If you're a fan of Homeland, but not your cable company, Showtime has your solution. You can now view all of their premium cable TV content, without any cable or satellite subscription.

Showtime's service comes on the heels of HBO Now, a similar standalone service launched by Showtime's primary competitor in April. While HBO's service is available for $14.99 per month, Showtime (whose service does not have a cool name) will only be $10.99. If you'd like to test it out before committing, a 30 day free trial is available.

The service is launching on Apple devices as well as Roku and Sony's Playstation Vue. In an interesting twist, the service is also available to Hulu subscribers, and at a discount, $8.99 per month. Showtime "for cord-cutters" will allow you to watch programming on demand, or to watch Showtime's East or West Coast streams live as they air.

HBO fired the first shot for a la carte television when it began offering its programming without a cable subscription. With Showtime now following suit the path is now open for any channel that wants to offer its content to the consumer without a contract. While HBO is generally viewed as having the stronger lineup, based on Game of Thrones alone, it will be interesting to see if Showtime's lower price attracts more consumers. A little competition might make things cheaper for the viewer down the road.

While less expensive than HBO, $10.99 a month is still a reasonable amount of money for a single channel. While cutting the cord frees consumers from contracts it's not necessarily a cheaper option. When you add together the price of Showtime, HBO Now, Netflix, Hulu, Sling TV and other services the price can add up to as much as a cable subscription if you want all the content that's available. Still, options are good and fans of Penny Dreadful now have one more.

Also read: Living Without Cable: My Experience with Cutting the Cord

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https://www.techspot.com/news/61286-showtime-now-available-cord-cutters-11-month-or.html

 

[Guest]

That 8.99 price is a good deal for those cord-cutters who enjoy a lot of Showtime content.

 

[fps4ever]

It's starting to get expensive cutting the cord!

 

[Greg S]

Netflix and Hulu are still better imo.

 

[davislane1]

If AMC ever offers a similar deal, cable companies will go belly-up overnight.

 

[cliffordcooley]

If AMC ever offers a similar deal, cable companies will go belly-up overnight.

Surely you are speaking of a different channel than the AMC listings (lineup for the next week) I just browsed through.
http://www.locatetv.com/listings/amc#16-Jul-2015

 

[davislane1]

Surely you are speaking of a different channel than the AMC listings (lineup for the next week) I just browsed through.
http://www.locatetv.com/listings/amc#16-Jul-2015

Well, first off, tomorrow's listings aren't half bad:

Ghost Busters
Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon 2

I'd say the only thing keeping that meal off the food pyramid is an afternoon slot filled by Terminator or Alien.

But the sell for an AMC sub isn't their daily programming; it's their original content. Most daily listings can be found on Netflix et. al. Current episodes of The Walking Dead, etc. don't show up on other services for several months. On-demand and live access to their original content is what makes an AMC standalone sub attractive.

 

[Guest]

While it's a step in the right direction, paying $11 per network will add up pretty quickly. They should join forces with other networks and offer bundles. Otherwise I'm fine with Netflix, and on the rare occasion TPB. :x

 

[oldikes]

I dont understand why they are soley launching on streaming boxes, if they released a desktop app there would be a far larger market...

 

[captaincranky]

And I'm still going to Redbox.

By the time you add up all these premium channels and other subscriptions a la carte, you'll quickly realize the cable companies were giving you 200 channels for free. (OK, so granted they're crap, but still).

So, a single dish is referentially more expensive than an entre, the "especial du juor", is a lot cheaper than the entre, and pretty soon you're going to realize you've simply handed your addiction over to a different drug dealer..

HBO isn't doing anybody, any favors. They did away with the DVD-Blu-Ray combo pack of "Game of Thrones", for season 4, and the pre-release pricing on season 5, Blu-Ray, is $74.00. and again, no DVD combo pack.. Bottom line, they'll bleed you for every red cent they possibly can.

Pretty soon they'll be whipping their subscribers to pick more cotton for them.....

 

[captaincranky]

While it's a step in the right direction, paying $11 per network will add up pretty quickly. They should join forces with other networks and offer bundles. Otherwise I'm fine with Netflix, and on the rare occasion TPB. :x

Hey, and then they could get together and form a cable company of their own!(y) Good thinkin'.

 

[Kevin82485]

It's starting to get expensive cutting the cord!

Agreeded. I'm Starting to think I'm better off keeping my cable subscription. It only costs me $50 a month and I get DVR and HD channels.

 

[wiyosaya]

As I see it, this is another gasp for breath of a drowning breed of networks. I have hulu, netflix, Amazon prime, and an OTA-DVR. Amazon prime is a rather bad comparison, IMHO, because it offers free shipping on products ordered from Amazon in addition to a fair amount of commercial-free content available for no extra charge. For the cost, you might as well say that Prime content is free - assuming you buy enough stuff to get your money's worth out of the shipping aspect.

Now, for a mere $8.99 a month extra, I can have Showtime because I subscribe to Hulu. To me, the question becomes a matter of few things:
1. Does Showtime have anything at all that I am interested in viewing?
- Answer, Yes - Homeland
2. Is the content that is available worth $8.99/mo to me?
- Answer: $8.99/mo seems a steep price to pay for one show that is not on all year long.
3. Do I have the time to watch this extra content?
- Answer, No. Other things are more important to me now as well as I watch quite a bit of other content on the other services already.

For me, it is not worth it; Neflix/Hulu/Amazon and the OTA are good enough. Most shows end up on at least one of these services for no additional charge though I may have to wait for them. Personally, I do not mind waiting for them. Homeland has yet to arrive elsewhere in the US, however, I view that as Showtime's loss.

The answers to these questions for others may be different than mine, but I think those questions are a good basis to use to determine the value of any streaming service.

I gave up an $87/mo satellite bill because I only watched a few programs from about five or six of the 500 channels of sh!t that I had to choose from - to paraphrase Pink Floyd. While I understand that these content companies want to keep milking every cent they can from subscribers, the new model they are offering is essentially no different from the subscription model I gave up.

Until they offer a model that is attractive to me, I will wait until I can get the content I want to see elsewhere at a much cheaper cost. I have to agree with the guest above who suggests that they get together and offer a package. To me, if Showtime, HBO, and Cinemax were to offer a package deal for $5/mo, I might go for it, then again I might not. There is too much for me to watch, and probably most of those three would go unwatched - so why should I throw away $5/mo for something I am not going to use?

Anyway - sorry Showtime. You will not be getting my money. I will wait until your content becomes available elsewhere at a price that I see as reasonable.