Lovers of premium cable TV channels just might be able to stop paying an arm and a leg for their favorite ones sooner than we may have expected. Earlier in the year, HBO made its announcement about its new standalone video streaming service which it plans to officially launch sometime later on in the year. Well, now Showtime has apparently decided to jump onboard the standalone streaming service bandwagon as well.
Showtime has been currently hosting some pretty popular shows. Among these shows are Penny Dreadful, Shameless and Masters of Sex. Up until now, it also has been a pretty expensive part of a cable TV subscription package. Big-name cable companies like DirecTV and Comcast usually charge their subscribers anywhere from about $10 to $15 or so dollar per month to add Showtime channel to an existing cable subscription package.
The chief executive officer of CBS (the company that owns Showtime), Leslie Moonves, explained how the Showtime channel played a significantly large part in the 2% increase in the company’s revenue. CBS also claims that to be able to capitalize on the popularity of the Showtime channel, sometime later on this year, it plans to introduce an online streaming service specifically for Showtime programs.
It is not yet known whether the Showtime streaming service will be subscription-based or a la carte, and it has not yet been declared how much the service will cost and when exactly it will be expected to officially launch. It will definitely be a standalone streaming service with no cable package required and subscribers to the service will be able to stream the Showtime series on their mobile devices, computers and set-top boxes.
Now that HBO and Showtime, two of the biggest names in pay TV channels are going to be offering standalone streaming services, it may inspire a huge amount of consumers to officially cut their cable cords and other channels and networks will most likely start jumping on the standalone streaming service bandwagon as well.