Stone Cold Dead

In my quest to pump ever greater levels of schlock into my living room, I've spent some time this week scouring the Roku store for likely looking sources of scuzzy dead beat films.  Of course, my dedication to tight fistedness means that an overriding criteria for these channels is that they must be free to air.  After all, a lot of their content is going to be public domain, which means they didn't have to pay for any rights to screen it.  Moreover, I really don't mind sitting through some commercials, if that helps to pay their running costs.  Usually, it is clear from the channel description whether it is free to air or charges a subscription.  But I've now encountered quite a few where it is far from obvious that they are a subscription channel - until you try to watch something, that is.   Then you find that you have to pay.  Often, these monthly subscriptions are pretty steep, bearing in mind that most of the product on offer is public domain and can be seen for free via multiple alternative sources.  The worst offender I've come across even had, next to each film, a 'watch with ads' option.  But if you clicked it, you were just directed to the 'sign up for a subscription' page.  To add insult to injury, it claimed to have a 'free movies' section - which didn't exist.  (Actually, there are several channels which use a mixed model of financing, including a selection of mainly public domain movies free to air, with ads, alongside a 'members section' for subscribers).  Anyway, such channels are stone cold dead to me.

That said, I actually have nothing against subscription channels, especially if they are offering some kind of exclusive content, but they have to clear and up front about their financial model.  There's set of channels on Roku (and probably other platforms) run by INC, which have a lot of the sort of stuff I watch - interestingly, they offer two versions of most of these channels: a 'regular', ad supported free to air version and a 'Gold' subscription variant.  They are up front about this and about the fact that the subscription doesn't necessarily guarantee exclusive or extra content, but rather offers an ad-free viewing experience.  Needless to say, I now have a number of the 'regular' INC channels on my device.  There's quite a lot of overlap in content between them, but it gives me access to a decent range of schlock, (even some seventies British sex comedies on 'Grindhouse Grit').  Mind you, 'B Movie TV' remains my 'go to' place for a quick fix of schlock - unlike many Roku channels, rather than offering programming on demand, they stream to a schedule, so you can just dip in, never quite knowing what to expect.  'B-Zone' is similar channel, featuring a wider variety of schlocky programming.  Thanks to these sorts of channels, I'm managing to maintain my principle of getting low rent entertainment without paying any subscriptions.  Trust me, you don't need things like Netflix when 'B-Movie TV' exists.