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If you’re a YouTube TV subscriber there’s a chance you might have access to the SHOWTIME premium network for free.
In the past twenty-four hours YouTube TV has been sending out emails to users letting them know about the free access. If you have yet to receive an email you can check if your account is eligible by heading into the settings via the service’s website and checking the price listed for SHOWTIME. Although the chances are good as soon as you head to the YouTube TV website you’ll see a prompt for the offer – if the account is eligible.
If you have received the email then taking advantage of the deal is simply a matter of hitting the “claim your reward” link in the email.
The only real caveat to eligibility seems to be how long you’ve been a subscriber to the service considering the emails explicitly state this is a reward for being a “longtime friend” of YouTube TV.
In addition, this seems to be an account-specific promotion so those with multiple accounts tied to a single YouTube TV subscription might find the deal cannot be accessed via all the accounts. For example, family accounts might only have free access via the master account.
It should be noted that this is not permanent free access but one which is good for almost three months as eligible subscribers retain free access up until September 5, 2019.
Evidently, the longer than usual free access is designed to hook users into becoming long-term subscribers. However, this is a deal any and all eligible subscribers should take advantage of as besides the access to a number of premium shows, the emails explicitly state the increased free trial will not automatically turn to a billed subscription.
In other words, anyone who does add SHOWTIME to their subscription through this promotion won’t have to worry about remembering to cancel the add-on before September 5 – the account will simply revert back to an unsubscribed status when the promotion ends.
This promotion will be good news for long-time subscribers as they have been the subject of one of the more dramatic price increases in recent times. Anyone who was with YouTube from the beginning would have been paying $35 per month for the live TV streaming service. However, a few months back YouTube TV upped the price to $50 per month and this was a service-wide price increase affecting all users regardless of how long they were YouTube TV users for.
Unlike DIRECTV NOW who also recently increased its price, YouTube TV timed the price hike well considering it also increased the number of channels users have resulting in a higher value service albeit at a higher price. In some ways, the deal will reduce the burden of the price increase even further as the premium network can be pricey depending on where you order it from.
For example, SHOWTIME typically costs $10 to $11 per month depending on which service you access it through, although for quite some time now YouTube has offered the same network access for just $7 per month.
Of course, if you are not particularly interested in shows like “Billions,” “Ray Donovan” and “Shameless,” then this might not be much of a deal for you.