It’s getting a lot easier to live outside the loving embrace of a cable or satellite TV subscription – Amazon just added HBO and Cinemax to its Amazon Channels selection of add-on packs for Prime video members. HBO is an additional $14.99 per month, and Cinemax is $9.99 monthly, with both offering 30-day free trials.
Amazon Channels offers over 70 additional add-on packs for Prime video subscribers, beyond what they can access for no additional charge as part of their existing Prime subscription. The HBO add-on provides access to HBO’s current hits and past hit shows and limited series, as well as their current licensed movies, and news shows like Joh Oliver. Likewise Cinemax provides access to their original shows, as well as movies like Mad Max: Fury Road and, in December, Jurassic World.
It’s great to see more a la carte channel offerings being added to over-the-top streaming services like Amazon Prime, and when you also consider recent developments like the arrival of DirectTV’s streaming service, and Netflix’s news that it now makes content available offline for download and viewing, the general climate for people who want TV without the TV bundle is getting better.
Still, the HBO add-on for Prime is $15 per month, which is exactly what it costs to subscribe to HBO Now, the channel-owned standalone streaming service. If you’re a hardcore Prime ecosystem user, with Fire and Fire TV devices all around, then adding HBO to your Prime service makes sense – but for just about everyone else, HBO Now as a separate sub is probably the better route given the price parity.
But more unbundling is better so let’s keep up this trend in general.