TheBigDave

Amazon just debuted their new Add-On Subscription service to Prime Streaming. You can now subscribe to premium services like Showtime, Starz, AcornTV, Shudder, DramaFever, ConTV, and many others. You can watch the videos through Amazon's app. And you can also use your Amazon account to sign-in on the individual stand-alone apps.

www.amazon.com/videosubscriptions

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davidh777

So it looks like this applies to current shows, like a cable add-on subscription would? They're offering The Affair season 2 and Masters of Sex season 3, among others, in the Showtime package.

I wonder if this would be easier to sign up for and drop than a cable equivalent.

TheBigDave

Dealing with my cable company requires 10 minutes to get through the "Press 1 for English" labyrinth, followed by 30+ minutes of "Your call is important to us, please wait for the next customer service representative" never-ending hell.

Eddie W

Yes, this is the same as the Showtime stand alone streaming service. Just bundled with Amazon. Shows like Homeland/The Affair, etc are available to stream the very second they air on the TV channel.

And also, yes this would be MUCH easier to sign up for than cable. And more importantly, drop. You can simply manage your subscriptions online & turn it off & it will stop after the billing cycle. Rather than having to make a call to your cable company & have them try to talk you into retaining.

Now it's time for Amazon to offer a monthly streaming-only plan & separate from the $100/annual that includes shipping, music, and Kindle books.

DJariya

I already subscribe to Starz and Showtime through Directv. I have 6 months of credits that run through next April keeping my cost to $6.99 to Starz and $7.99 for Showtime. So I'm good with them.

I also subscribe to DramaFever, mainly for my Mom who's into Korean dramas. We pay a $40 flat rate per year directly through them as a grandfathered rate. It's actually cheaper than this.

I'm intrigued by Shudder. Does anyone here subscribe to it? I like that it's a horror themed SVOD add-on and $4.99 isn't outrageous.

Most of the other content seems a little too niche and not really in my interests.

TheBigDave

I've been a Shudder subscriber since it opened. And I'm pretty happy with it. It's geared towards the serious horror fan. Mainstream fans looking for Hollywood movies like Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream will probably be disappointed. There's a lot of foreign movies. Euro-horror from Argento, Bava, Fulci, Rollin, etc. Asian horror from Korean and Japan like Tale of Two Sisters and Audition. Some great stuff you won't find anywhere else.

Even though the catalog is small (around 300 movies), I'd say at least 90% are worth watching. They do a great job of picking interesting movies. There's very little filler.

My only gripes are that I wish they had more movies. They don't update very often. And some of the foreign movies are English dub. Although they seem to be getting better with that.

You should give it a try. I think it's a 2-week free trial, then they charge $4.99/month. Here's the site if you want to see which titles they offer:

https://www.shudder.com/

TheBigDave

I'd also recommend Acorn TV. They have a great library of British Mysteries and Drama shows. They also have some stuff from Australia and a few foreign language shows from Europe.

https://acorn.tv/browse/browseall

GatorDeb

How can you see the prices?

DJariya

Click on the free trial button.

GatorDeb

Thought about that but didn't want to activate the trial yet. Will it take me to a screen to verify the trial? I'm about to go out of town so I want to keep the trials for January.

GatorDeb

Darn it blocked at work anyway Will have to wait until I get home tomorrow. Showtime and Starz seem promising.

PhantomStranger

Cable makes a ton of money from premium subscribers. That sound you hear are cable executives crying themselves to sleep tonight.

TheBigDave

Showtime and Starz are each $8.99/month with a 1-week free trial.

Everything else seems to be $4.99/month. A few are $3.99/month (DramaFever, Lifetime, Comedy Central).

Looks like everything has at least a 1-week free trial. A few are two weeks. Acorn TV has a 1-month free trial.

GatorDeb

Thanks!!

One WEEK Free trial? Lame.

I have iTunes credits for 5 months of HBO + Showtime (although I may do a month of each separately to spread them out and alternate them over ten months). I can see doing Showtime and Starz but not on a regular basis. Subscribe, see a bunch of stuff that month, unsubscribe. I only use Hulu when a new season of Grey's Anatomy or Biggest Loser comes out (and freeze it like now when GA is in hiatus).

Easy

I can understand Showtime but IMO, everything else listed should be regular no-additional-cost prime. If this is the route they are going I don't see much of a reason to keep prime. What are they going to add to prime this month? I see nothing new that is of any interest to me.

DJariya

Starz is also a premium subscription-based service like Showtime.

The $99 yearly fee is mainly for the shipping. The original shows/extra shows are just extras added as a courtesy.

This new content being introduced costs extra and can't just be given away for peanuts.

davidh777

Yeah, I was going to mention Starz as being a premium channel with original content.

This is a different model. Prime and Netflix streaming deal in catalog content. I can see the point with a channel like Acorn that I presume deals in catalog content, but Showtime and Starz are offering current content like HBO Now is. That can't be rolled into subscription streaming.

Given the current trend of binge watching, these kinds of services make it easy to subscribe for a month, watch a year's worth of stuff, then cancel till next year. I only subscribe to HBO Now while GOT is on.

Easy

Please, don't make me laugh. Sure, cable and satellite want you to believe that Starz, FX, AMC and others are premium channels, and they certainly charge premium prices, but the truth is they never have more than one, maybe two, shows that appeal to me at all so the premium label (and cost) just isn't justified. At least, not for me.

Is that a fact? I seem to recall them "giving away" the FX shows "Justified" and "The Americans" (among others) to prime subscribers to view at absolutely no cost... not even peanuts.

If it is indeed only about shipping, I don't ship enough to make the $99 annual cost a worthwhile investment.

Navinabob

FX and AMC are basic cable channels and not in the same ballpark as Showtime, Starz and HBO.

DJariya

You seem to have these confused.

FX, TNT and AMC are advertiser supported basic cable channels, not premium channels. They all have commercials on TV and movies are edited for time and content.

Starz is basically the same as HBO, they run uncut commercial free movies shortly after they are released on BD and some original shows. Outlander, which is on Starz, is one of their original shows. It's R rated content with graphic nudity, violence and sex that TNT or AMC can't show.

Regarding Amazon Prime, the original point of the service was the 2-day shipping. Shows like Bosch, Mozart in the Jungle, The Man in the High Castle along with other basic cable shows like Justified, Orphan Black etc. are all included as part of the service at no extra charge. It's supposed to be an extra incentive to subscribe to it. Sorry I wasn't clear about that. All this extra content that Amazon is offering (especially Showtime and Starz) don't have the same kind of deals as the others and thus costs more. Which is why they have the added on monthly fee to the yearly $99.

scorpion

Starz is great and easily worth the $8.99 to binge Outlander, Black Sails, Power, Ash vs. Evil Dead, etc.

TheBigDave

Acorn has been releasing new stuff on the streaming service before they put it on DVD.

Shannon Nutt

Yep, Black Sails is very underrated (I like it a lot) and most of us here know how wildly entertaining Ash vs. Evil Dead has been so far.

Starz might be a better pick than Showtime right now.

Navinabob

Their movie selection is better

The Questyen

I have zero interest in those other shows but I'll definitely get it for a month so I can watch through Outlander.