Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Entertainment
  3. News

AMC rolls out a 'soft launch' of its new Premiere streaming service on Xfinity

Nick Hastings
By

AMC Premiere The Preacher
Image used with permission by copyright holder
In late March, Reuters reported that AMC was planning to launch a streaming service targeting millennials, allowing fans to watch unlimited content from the network on several platforms without being weighed down by advertisements. As of Thursday, the service — called AMC Premiere — is live, and viewers can plunk down $5 per month for ad-free access to all of AMC’s shows, as well as a curated collection of movies and a selection of exclusive and first-look content.

Unfortunately, there’s a catch: Unlike many popular streaming services (HBO Go/Now and Hulu Plus, for example), you’ll need to be a Comcast Xfinity TV customer in order to do so.

Recommended Videos

If you’re a big fan of AMC’s original content, Premiere might still be worth it — sure, you can watch The Walking Dead and Better Call Saul (which, incidentally, will be returning for a fourth season) via Xfinity OnDemand, but you’ll have to sit through commercials, and with Premiere, you can view new episodes right when they air live, meaning you’ll be one of the first people in the world to see the ending.

Related

Additional content available via AMC Premiere, like feature-length movies, will be continually refreshed and tailored to complement current in-season programming. Behind-the-scenes stuff like trailers, bonus scenes, and interviews will supplement the network’s flagship programs. For AMC nuts — and there are a lot, given the network’s overwhelming success with shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad — adding AMC Premiere to their monthly Xfinity payout will be a no-brainer. Still, it’s difficult to see many people switching cable providers (or signing up, if they’re not current cable subscribers) just for Premiere.

AMC is calling today’s rollout a “soft launch” — that is, not all content will be available right off the bat, and many features will be added in as summer progresses. Currently, subscribers can access the service via Xfinity set-top boxes and via the Xfinity Stream web app. The network plans to add Premiere access to the AMC app and AMC.com in the next few months, but no specific date has been set. AMC is also planning on creating exclusive content specifically for AMC Premiere; no details have yet been revealed.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Nick Hastings
Nick Hastings
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Nick is a Portland native and a graduate of Saint Mary's College of California with a Bachelor's of Communication. Nick's…
AT&T is renaming its streaming video service yet again
AT&T TV rebrands as DirecTV Stream.

AT&T is going to rename its streaming video services, which include AT&T TV, AT&T TV Now, and AT&T Watch TV, to "DirecTV Stream" on August 26, according to The Verge. Why the name change? It appears to be part of an effort to establish a new brand for the company's video properties, which were formally spun off into a new company earlier in August.

And while that might be a perfectly legitimate reason to change the service's name, it's enough to make our heads spin. Since 2019, AT&T has engaged in a confusing set of product launches and rebranding efforts that have used both AT&T and DirecTV names. The company's original effort at a cable TV alternative streaming service was called DirecTV Now. You could use it with your existing broadband internet connection and it didn't require a set-top box. This service was rebranded as AT&T TV Now, but ended up eventually being absorbed by AT&T TV, a service that still delivered live TV content over the internet, but required a dedicated Android TV set-top box, making it the logical successor to AT&T's U-verse TV service. All the while, the company kept alive its AT&T Watch TV service, which is a very lightweight package of more than 35 live TV channels.

Read more
NBC’s new Peacock streaming service is just one big ad-injection machine
streaming shows

Comcast's NBCUniversal finally unveiled its big swing at streaming on Thursday, which the megacorp has titled Peacock. (Yeah, the name really leaves something to be desired.) 

In a shockingly long investor call, NBC revealed its big new strategy for delivering its many intellectual property spoils online, which will be offered in a multi-tiered plan (with both ad-based and ad-free versions) rolling up a content hodge-podge, including NBCUniversal TV classics and films on-demand, a handful of new exclusive shows, and live content, from NBC News to the Tokyo Olympics.

Read more
NBC’s Peacock streaming service launches in July with free, $5, and $10 tiers
10 best the office characters ranked rainn wilson

During a Comcast investor meeting on Thursday, January 16, the company — which owns NBCUniversal — announced that the Peacock streaming service will debut later this year with three pricing tiers from free to $10 per month. 

Only one of the tiers will be ad-free. Peacock Free will have ads, but subscribers will have access to 7,500 hours of content, including parts of the 2020 Olympics. 

Read more