Roku Launches Cheap, Ad-Free Streaming Service 'Howdy'

Roku has launched Howdy, a new ad-free streaming service that costs $2.99 a month. The streaming platform says it offers 10,000 hours of content from Lionsgate, Warner Bros. Discovery and FilmRise, as well as its own, exclusive programming known as Roku Originals. CNBC reports: The service is available across the U.S. beginning Tuesday. [...] The new service runs alongside the Roku Channel, which will remain free. Howdy will initially be available on the Roku platform, and will later be rolled out on mobile and other platforms, the company said. "Priced at less than a cup of coffee, Howdy is ad-free and designed to complement, not compete with, premium services," said Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood in the release.

5 months later:

[rogoshen1]

>We're pleased to announce that we're adding a new primo tier subscription for $11.99 a month that continues to be ad free, with an expanded catalog
>To better serve our customers we're discontinuing the previous $2.99 tier, while offering a completely free version with limited commercial interruption.

Re:

[algaeman]

Sayonara to Howdy

Re:

[sysrammer]

>To better serve our customers we're discontinuing the previous $2.99 tier, while offering a completely free version with limited commercial interruption.

To be called "Shit Howdy" in the South.

May be worth it

[too2late]

It's a decent idea for this reason: some of the Roku original stuff is good, but you can only watch it on Roku channel with ads. One example is the Weird Al movie. When that came out it was exclusive to Roku and the only option was to watch it with ads. I'd pay 2.99 to watch it without ads. Like the previous commenter said however, they will screw it up in a few months by getting greedy and adding more content as an excuse to go up on the price.

Back catalog competition

[will4]

We are at the time when there are tens of thousands of copyright free movies, books, music and magazines entering the public domain each year.

They may be old, outdated and less popular; though there's enough to read/watch/listen to copyright free for 10, 20, 50 or 100% of your entertainment for life.

And streaming will get to a flat rate 10 cents per TV episode at some point for 30 year or older, once popular, now largely unwatched shows.

.

Re:

[madbrain]

There is always another ad free option. It's called a Torrent.

Roku USED to be good years ago.....

[bsdetector101]

Roku used to have a lot of FREE channels plus you could side load new ones, but then...... free became pay for channels and side loading was stopped and I quit using it. Tried Roku 2 years ago and almost everything is payola now ! Unplugged it..... I stream everything for free off internet sites.

And give them 1 year

[wakeboarder]

before they introduce ads.

Trademark? I call B.S.

[LeadGeek]

Roku, if you attempt to enforce your bareword "Howdy" trademark, you're going to really piss off a very large group of powerful individuals.

FAFO
Gig 'Em

Better than FAST?

[jbus07]

I get the attempt here - take some pseudo-premium content that was rejected by most other streamers, put it in an app, and charge a nominal fee for ad-free viewing. If I'm seeking out this lower-tier content, it's mostly as filler or background, so is the add-freeness really that much better than viewing it on the linear FAST channels Roku has (or other FAST apps like Tubi or Pluto, for instance)? I would expect that a lot of the content on those channels will happen to be part of Howdy's catalog.

To 'Howdy' I say 'Doody'.

[Fly Swatter]

In half a year the price will increase, then randomly after that. In a few years it will either be at least $30 a month or full of Advertisements while losing the majority of content. We've all seen this before.