Roku Launches Premium Video Subscriptions to Showtime, Starz, Epix and More

Taking a page out of Amazon’s playbook, Roku is launching premium subscriptions on the Roku Channel starting Monday — promising to be another valuable revenue stream for the streaming-video platform company.As part of a launch promo, Roku users who sign up for Showtime, Starz or Epix before March 31, 2019, will be eligible to receive a 30-day free trial of those services on the Roku Channel. HBO is conspicuously absent from the list, although Roku says it’s continuing to talk to additional partners.Variety was first to report last summer that Roku was planning to resell video-subscription services through its platform. The offer is similar to Amazon’s existing Amazon Channels marketplace, which generated an estimated $1.7 billion in 2018. Terms of Roku’s distribution arrangement with the premium channels aren’t being disclosed, but the company is likely receiving some share of subscription fees and/or a bounty for new subscriber signups.