Over the last few days, you may have heard about a new service that Amazon has launched to it’s Prime customers in the UK called ‘Amazon Channels’. But what is this service, and is it actually worth it. We delve deeper to take a look.
What is Amazon Channels?
Amazon Channels allows Prime members to add channel subscriptions for a low monthly subscription fee, available individually without the need to sign up for a bundle or enter a lengthy contract. Prime members in the UK can now enjoy premium factual entertainment series such as ‘Gold Rush’ on Discovery, reality TV like ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ on hayu, or timeless movies such as ‘The Hobbit’ on MGM by signing up to the relevant subscription.
What Channels Can I Get?
Amazon Channels also brings live sport to Prime members including comprehensive coverage of the upcoming ‘French Open Tennis 2017’ tournament on Eurosport Player. Along with a range of genre TV subscriptions, Amazon Channels also offers Prime members access to Heera, Amazon’s own, curated Bollywood channel, offering more than 500 movies including recent releases like ‘Sultan’ starring Salman Khan. You can find a full list of the available channels here.
Is Amazon Channels For Me?
Well that really depends… Personally for me, no. As someone that already has a Netflix, Sky and Amazon Prime subscription, there is very little this service offers that isn’t covered elsewhere. However, if you’re someone that loves reality tv programming, a service like hayu might be totally up your street, or if you love Bollywood, you may enjoy Heera. It also may be useful if you don’t have Sky or Virgin, but want a way of getting the Discovery Channels.
What does confuse me is why this is only offered to Amazon Prime customers, as it’s not actually including anything with the Prime subscription. You’re still having to pay around £5 a month per channel you want to add to your package, on top of the Prime sub, so it’s an additional premium service. It does have the convenience of being able to pay monthly though, so you could select a horror channel like Shudder one month, then switch it for an Anime channel the month after if you wished.
The one channel which maybe of particular interest to our readers is Comic Con HQ. This gives you access to a load of fan-favourite films, original programming, and, most importantly, exclusive access to panels from the massive San Diego Comic Con. It’s not clear at the moment if they are going to be live streaming the 2017 event, or if the panels will go up afterwards though, so I’m holding off until we get more information. Even then, it’s not actually offering anything you can’t already get directly from the Comic Con HQ website for less money… Having it as part of the Amazon setup is arguably more convenient, but still…
Where Can I Find More?
For more information on Amazon Channels, just follow this link!
