In addition to shortly launching a stand-alone service, akin to HBO NOW, Showtime has entered into an fascinating partnership with Hulu.
This July, Hulu brings you a new way to get SHOWTIME. Get up to 30 days free of SHOWTIME with a Hulu subscription and see what you’ve been missing! After your trial, you’ll get SHOWTIME for $8.99/month in addition to your $7.99/month Hulu subscription.
What makes this unique is a 20% Showtime streaming discount along with both on-demand and live content being accessed from within the Hulu interface. Beyond SHO’s willingness to give up some control, I wonder if this signals Hulu interest in Sling TV space — should we expect additional channel-like offerings?
I’ve been somewhat neutral-to-negative on Hulu given a constantly shifting and incomplete library combined with commercial interruption of Scientology propaganda and a seemingly infinite supply McDonald’s ads. And Showtime Anytime is still delivered with only stereo sound. But perhaps both of these will have been corrected or perhaps the sum of these services will outweigh their component shortcomings. In any event, despite TiVo’s cord cutter interest, they run an older Hulu app… that is incapable of streaming Showtime. So owners will have to look elsewhere (like Roku and nearly every other modern platform). Hopefully the two are working on an update?