Not that Showtime and Starz have that much compelling content anymore, but Amazon has introduced add on subscriptions to their Amazon Prime Instant Video offering. The price is lower than what DISH officially charges, $8.99/month for each. This gives access to their complete library on demand. That probably explains all the discounts and offers on premium channels that DISH has been offering customers the last few months.
More competition for DISH from Amazon Video
- Thread starter hvarma2008
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I'm canceling my dish showtime subscription and signing up for Amazon's immediately. I absolutely hate the picture quality on DISH showtime, and end up using the Dish login to watch showtime stuff via online (chromecast or amazon tv) anyway. It is so far superior. Picture quality is a huge failing of DISH for most channels, it is driving me to watch anything I can online vs dish. Sad.
Once the Amazon Video app shows up on Apple TV, it will be very hard to justify traditional cable/satellite costs in general.
Sling TV is a good idea, but it still suffers from the cable bundling rules, I wonder how long the cable content providers can fight the al-a-carte and give in to allowing customers to subscribe what they want or watch on demand.
Sling TV is a good idea, but it still suffers from the cable bundling rules, I wonder how long the cable content providers can fight the al-a-carte and give in to allowing customers to subscribe what they want or watch on demand.
The prices of those channels is going to be entertaining. If Bob Iger was correct, ESPN will be $15-20. Either that, or the future contract bidded are going to be significantly less.
I will sign up for Starz through Amazon next month so I can watch the full season of Ash vs the Evil Dead. I don't see any reason to subscribe long term but being able to watch a full season of these premium network series for $9 is a good deal in my book.
I think that's where the real value of these stand alone options are. I don't care about having channels in my lineup. I care about individual shows and content and I don't care where it comes from as long as the quality is good and it's legal.
I like Game of Thrones, VEEP, and Silicon Valley but I don't care about HBO. The standalone options let me sign up for a month or two and watch the entire season on my own schedule. The same thing goes for Penny Dreadful on Showtime and Ash vs the Evil Dead on Starz. I won't be subscribing to any of them long term and I probably won't have more than one of them at a time but I have no problem signing up for each of them for a month or two every year to catch the series I care about.
I think that's where the real value of these stand alone options are. I don't care about having channels in my lineup. I care about individual shows and content and I don't care where it comes from as long as the quality is good and it's legal.
I like Game of Thrones, VEEP, and Silicon Valley but I don't care about HBO. The standalone options let me sign up for a month or two and watch the entire season on my own schedule. The same thing goes for Penny Dreadful on Showtime and Ash vs the Evil Dead on Starz. I won't be subscribing to any of them long term and I probably won't have more than one of them at a time but I have no problem signing up for each of them for a month or two every year to catch the series I care about.
I wonder if eventually they will catch on to people only subscribing for a month or two to catch up on a series then cancelling and do things differently to get you to subscribe longer like only having half the season available when you first sign up then making more available later. Don't think that would work so I don't know how they would pull it off. They don't want people only signing up for a year or two.
I probably can get Starz a little cheaper at half off, but it is always nice to have options.
Doesn't Starz break up Outlander in to two halves of a series a year, requiring people to sub at least two months to catch up or 4 to 5 months to watch in entirety?
Does Starz from Dish include Starz streaming access so you can watch the entire season of several series during a 1-2 month subscription? If they include every season of every show in Starz on demand like the streaming access does that would work too.
Either way, I don't have Dish so the standalone option through Amazon is the way I would go.
Actually Starz is $7 on dish with the Half off promo for 6 months
Starz is $14, Showtime is $15.
Starz is $14, Showtime is $15.
That would be the way to go for Dish customers then assuming they have a device with StazPlay support.
Noted. I miss when they all were $12 except HBO. HBO was $14. Made everything so easy.
- Nov 29, 2003
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I wonder if these premium channels understand what kind of problem they are creating for themselves with their easy cancel policy.
I don't watch or need them for movies (I have a Ultra Violet/ Vudu account that I share with 5 others to split the costs 6 ways and we get the movies even a month before they come out on disc ), I need these channels only for their TV series.
Since we binge watch everything, we could sub to HBO NOW when the Game of Thrones is done ( and that is all I like on HBO now, they need some new stuff, I have hopes for WESTWORLD), we could cancel and move over to Starz to watch seasons of Black Sails and Ash, then to Showtime for Homeland and Penny Dreadful.
If we switch every month we only pay for one premium a month or every other month depending on when new seasons start and finish.
I don't watch or need them for movies (I have a Ultra Violet/ Vudu account that I share with 5 others to split the costs 6 ways and we get the movies even a month before they come out on disc ), I need these channels only for their TV series.
Since we binge watch everything, we could sub to HBO NOW when the Game of Thrones is done ( and that is all I like on HBO now, they need some new stuff, I have hopes for WESTWORLD), we could cancel and move over to Starz to watch seasons of Black Sails and Ash, then to Showtime for Homeland and Penny Dreadful.
If we switch every month we only pay for one premium a month or every other month depending on when new seasons start and finish.
Yeah, people that game it are outliers and if they wanted to curb that they'd introduce restrictions.
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Starz:
Black Sailz
Outlander
Power
Da Vinci's Demins
Ash Vs Evil Dead
Survivors Remorse
Blunt Talk
That's a lot of compelling programing to me...
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I have been doing on demand with Amazon instant video. Even though it's a few dollars per show, I'm very happy
Yeah, we own nearly 200 items on Amazon Video, love that they keep improving the service.
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