Philo rolls out its first premium add-on channels
EPIX and STARZ are being added to Philo as an add-on options to its live TV streaming service.
Philo CEO Andrew McCollum confirmed the new additions to a customer this afternoon on Reddit.
McCollum explained the company is in its early stages of how to present available movies to Philo customers.
“Yeah, this is just starting to roll out,” McCollum wrote. “We are still working on addressing some of the visibility issues. The goal is to only have content appear that has an existing or upcoming airing on a channel you do subscribe to.”
Philo is among the lowest priced live TV streaming services at $20 per month. Customers get 58 live TV channels including A&E, History and HGTV and unlimited Cloud DVR service.
EPIX and STARZ are the first premium OTT add-ons to come to Philo. It’s notable that HBO was an early investor in Philo back when the company was a start-up in 2013. There has been no mention about adding HBO as well.
Same pricing as standalone EPIX and STARZ
Subscribing to EPIX through Philo will cost $6 per month. STARZ will cost $9 per month. That’s the same price as a standalone subscription.
Movies from EPIX and STARZ are starting to appear within a section of Philo’s homepage. At the moment, customers are being given the option to “upgrade” to an EPIX or STARZ subscription.
But McCollum said that, “we don’t want to be constantly showing lots of content that requires an upgrade to watch, though occasionally there may be movies that you could watch immediately by upgrading.”
Responding to another customer, McCollum said that Philo will have the complete on-demand library for STARZ and EPIX even if customers don’t see the same number of live channels offered elsewhere.
“We are looking at other (hopefully more innovative) ways we can surface and discover content in the deeper library,” he added.
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I’m very happy with Philo channel selection. I hope in the near future local channels are added as well. I would like to add Paypal as my choice to pay for my service, overall I’m happy with Philo.
Philo needs to focus on its base offering. Drop all the channels no one watches and add new ones. Stale.