Showtime Has Officially Launched Its Streaming Service

The OTT era has begun at Showtime. The premium cable network launched its new stand-alone streaming service today.

The service, which is also called Showtime, is available for $10.99 per month via Apple, Roku, PlayStation Vue and Showtime.com. Hulu subscribers can add Showtime at a discounted rate, for $8.99 per month, on top of Hulu's $7.99 monthly fee. 

All of Showtime's partners are offering new customers a free 30-day trial subscription.

Showtime has priced its service for $4 to $6 less than HBO Now, which HBO launched on April 7. Unlike HBO Now, Showtime's service also offers live feeds of its East Coast and West Coast programming, in addition to on-demand access to its content.

When announcing the service last month, Showtime had kept its actual launch date under wraps, only indicating that it would be available before the July 12 season premieres of the network's two big summer series, Ray Donovan and Masters of Sex. 

Showtime Networks president David Nevins previously told Adweek he hopes the service will open up Showtime to a whole new audience, particularly millennials. "We do know that there's maybe 12 million homes that have high-speed Internet who are not subscribers to any video packages," Nevins said. "And there's another, say, 75 million homes that have video packages but don't subscribe to Showtime. So we feel like there's definitely opportunities in new distribution."