You can no longer sign up to a standalone Showtime subscription through the Showtime website or app. While this won’t come as much surprise to those that have been following the ongoing Showtime news, those that had been considering signing up will now find that they’ve lost the option to subscribe without signing up through Paramount Plus.
Paramount Plus and Showtime officially merged in the last week of June. While the two subscriptions could previously be bundled together, the Paramount Plus Premium plan was replaced with a new Paramount+ with Showtime plan. Priced at $11.99 per month, the combined plan offers pretty good value for those wanting access to both services.
Even before the merging of the two services took place, Paramount Global had confirmed that the Showtime standalone streaming service, including its apps, would be discontinued around the end of 2023.
As part of the discontinuing of Showtime, the option to sign up to a standalone Showtime subscription ended today. As explained in a new help post, “As of July 6, 2023, you can no longer start a new subscription to the Showtime standalone streaming service.”
While existing Showtime subscribers are unaffected by this change, anyone now looking to access Showtime content will need to subscribe directly through the Paramount Plus website by signing up to the Paramount+ with Showtime plan.
Alternatively, it is still possible to sign up to Showtime through some third-party providers. For example, Hulu still offers Showtime as an add-on. Likewise, select live TV streaming services, including DirecTV Stream and YouTube TV, also still offer Showtime as a premium add-on option.
Other third-party providers, however, have already made the change. For example, when attempting to sign up to Showtime through Prime Video Channels, Amazon now redirects the user to sign up to Paramount Plus instead.
Either way, and with third-party Showtime add-ons typically costing $10.99 per month, it makes more sense to take Paramount Plus up on its Paramount+ with Showtime plan.
For the extra $1 per month, subscribers not only get access to all of the same Showtime content, but also access to all of the Paramount Plus library, as well as an ad-free viewing experience.
