AppleInsider Staff
No longer will fans of "Ash vs. Evil Dead" be forced to keep a cable subscription or pony up to purchase full seasons, as premium content network Starz has become the latest company to join the on-demand content fray.
The Starz offering also includes sister networks Starz Encore and Movieplex, bringing more content in addition to the network's stable of in-house shows like Outlander. The $8.99 monthly fee slightly undercuts competitors including HBO and Showtime, though it's not clear whether consumers in this market are price conscious or are simply looking for the best content.
"Starz has entered the market today with an enormous value proposition for consumers," company CEO Chris Albrecht said in a release. "Our programing [sic] will now be more widely available to the 20 million broadband only homes of cord nevers, cord cutters and cord shavers, including Millennials and other underserved consumers who need other viable subscription service options."
Consumers who already pay for Starz through their cable or satellite provider can authenticate that subscription in the app to access its on-demand features without an additional fee.
Like HBO and Showtime, which arrived on the Apple TV late last year, Starz will debut with support for Siri universal search. Fourth-generation Apple TV owners in supported countries will see Starz results alongside those of iTunes and other subscription services.
At press time, the Starz app was still in the process of rolling out but will be available on the iOS and Apple TV App Stores today.
Christine McKee
Andrew O'Hara
Malcolm Owen
Andrew Orr
William Gallagher
Charles Martin
16 Comments
I'm like all the leap frogging in pricing. competition is good. Keep it coming. I hope HBO and Showtime respond.
Commented on this earlier in another thread but i think a big feature is allowing you to download and watch movies/shows offline. Amazon is really the only other streaming content provider who is allowing this.
This is great! Each time Comcast has screwed me on pricing (which they do far too often) they offer me 3-6 months of Starz as part of their compensation. There's a huge amount of great movies available on-demand. I'd thought about adding a subscription on through Amazon, but the lack of Amazon Video on the AppleTV has been one thing holding me back.
I may just go for it now!
How good is Starz? How big is their movie catalog? I would love to ditch our Netflix DVD plan, if I could get a comparable streaming selection of movies elsewhere.
Right now, however, Netflix appears to be the only game in town, if you want to be able to watch more obscure movies. Rarely have we found Netflix to not carry the DVD of a movie we wanted to watch.
It would have been better if they allowed live streaming in addition, then if somebody was switching from cable to the app, they would still have what they had before.