It is normal that SkyShowtime is cheap compared to Netflix. The question is if that alone is enough to compete

It hit our screens on Tuesday, February 28, so I’ve been poking around SkyShowtime’s catalog and possibilities for about half a week. As we counted in our first impressions, this proposal from NBCUniversal and Paramount fulfills what was promised and has abundant proposals of interest at a very attractive price, especially when it comes to exclusive content.

The good thing about giving the issue a few days is that you can find nuances that initially go unnoticed, and that’s what we’re going to get into today: what is our opinion after resting it a bit. Is what the platform gives us enough to consider SkyShowtime a worthy rival to Netflix, HBO Max and Disney+? Let’s see what this new contender has to stand up to the giants of the streaming.

The good: the catalog (but not the part you think) and its price

If one thing is clear, it is that everyone will have to decide, based on their tastes and needs, what they are looking for in a platform streaming. The best example are more or less specialized content platforms, such as Disney+ or Filmin. If you are interested in ‘Star Wars’ or Marvel in the case of the first, or auteur and cult cinema in the second, you don’t have to think about it too much. Those platforms are perfect for you. And it also works in the opposite direction: if you are not interested in those topics, you will find little in them that will make you pay the registration fee.

But platforms like HBO Max, Netflix, Prime Video or SkyShowtime itself have products of all kinds, without discrimination beyond certain characteristics that are what we attribute to them due to our prejudices or the companies’ own advertising campaigns. SkyShowtime feeds, especially, on exclusive material from channels like Peacock and Paramount+ (from them come their powerful exclusive series: ‘yellowstone‘, ‘Tulsa King’, ‘Halo’, ‘Star Trek – Strange New Worlds‘ and so on), and from the Universal and Paramount film catalogue.

Which is like not saying anything specific: considerable variety of genres, styles and proper names. The potential viewer has no choice but to review catalogs and decide if they are of interest to them. As I have done, that I have found interesting pieces in films that are not too modern and not too complicated to accessbut that I am interested in having accessible (a good part of Spielberg’s filmography, some Scorsese’s, rarities like ‘Action Point’, the documentary ‘Turtle Power’, ‘Valley of Revenge’ or ‘Hiding in Witches’, to list a few).

In other words, nothing more (and nothing less) than movies and series, but above all movies, comparable to what can be found in the catalog funds of other platforms and which will not be a priority for a majority block of viewers, who are the devotees. of the most recent premiere cinema and, if possible, unpublished. Luckily, not all viewers are the same, so it’s time to roll up your sleeves and poke around to decide which platforms best suit your tastes. It has no more mysteries.

For the rest, it is a pleasure to wander through the catalog and find unexpected surprises. The excellent Nickelodeon Ninja Turtles animated series, the lesser-known ‘Star Trek’ movies and series (which recently aired on Netflix, mind you), the complete ‘Avatar’ animated series, the Rugrats movies, the fabulous and haunting ‘A friend of the Family’ by Nick Antosca… the possibilities are varied and it is a pleasure to organize a viewing list for the future of several dozen elements that add to the undeniable attractions of ‘Yellowstone’, ‘Tulsa King’ or ‘Halo’.

And all this at a more than competitive price. Some complaints from some subscribers who are finding the odd problem with the application of the 50% perpetual offer for the first subscribers has not tarnished the launch of the platform streaming cheapest at the moment. It is not a negligible detail, especially in these times when Netflix is ​​going through a real image crisis precisely for this reason.

The bad: Missed capabilities and image quality

We mentioned Disney+ and Filmin a little above as examples of platforms specialized in very different topics. This specialization not only guarantees a specific audience, but also allows completeness: Disney+ is all Marvel, all ‘Star Wars’, all Pixar. And in Filmin they can afford to say that there are complete filmographies, genres and periods exhaustively dumped in the catalogue. Of course, in both cases with their gaps, but specialization allows completeness.

And that is precisely what SkyShowtime (or Netflix, or Prime Video) cannot boast of: it is obvious both what is missing and what is there. For example: Universal’s fund of classics is overwhelming… and there are only a couple of Hitchcock movies and little else? Nothing from the company’s overwhelming catalog of gothic horror films. Very different example: when I saw the productions of the ‘Jackass’ brand I couldn’t help but think of the wide catalog of programs (especially adult animation) on MTV (can you imagine ‘Aeon Flux’ on a platform?), but there is no nothing interesting about the brand beyond the (great) Beavis and Butthead film from a few years ago. Unless you are interested in ‘Gandía Shore’.

The absences are also notable with many of the series, and some like ‘Grimm’ or ‘House’ are incomplete. The Nickelodeon section has quality series, but the classics are missing (and ‘SpongeBob’? And ‘Catdog’? And ‘Aaahh!!! Monsters’?) and others like ‘Rugrats’ only have a few seasons . The same goes for Paramount+ (there is no special ‘South Park’ and exclusive ‘Beavis and Butthead’ or the last seasons of ‘Evil’), with Showtime (‘Masters of Horror’, ‘Queer As Folk’, ‘The Outer Limits’ , the new incarnation of ‘Penny Dreadful’)… and even with Syfy, which has a channel in Spain but which is far from broadcasting its entire abundant catalogue, since the days of Sky Sci-Fi.

It is true that many of these programs have had a presence in Spain. For example, series like ‘Evil’, ‘Banshee’ or ‘Chucky’ have been seen here on different platforms. It is to be assumed that when their license periods are over they will end up in the official container of their original platforms. It already happened with Disney+, months or even years had to pass before the Marvel movies and ‘Star Wars’ were exclusively (or almost) on the rights owner’s platform.

Added to these problems is another one: the image quality, not outrageously bad, but it does give away why the platform is so cheap. Our colleagues from Genbeta analyzed it in depth and found that its maximum video resolution is Full HD or 1080p, not UHD or 4K. The 1080p that it offers, yes, is very competent, with a peak bitrate of about 10 Mbps. Unfortunately, the platform uses the H.264 codec, an encoding technology of worse quality than H.265, which is the one that HBO Max was passed in its latest update, with the quality improvement that we all know. The audio isn’t much to cheer about either: there isn’t even basic 5.1 audio like Dolby Digital Plus, which most platforms have.

Conclusion: Does Netflix have anything to fear?

As much as it was exciting for us to run into a competitor who would turn the game upside down. status quo Led by Netflix (which may not be shaken even by the biggest image crisis the platform has suffered since it went mainstream), it’s doubtful that SkyShowtime will pull it off, even given its price. The reason is summarized in everything stated above: the catalog is interesting, but it has its flaws. And not even technically SkyShowtime is capable of hitting the table (something that, in any case, does not support a revolution by itself, ask Apple TV +).

The reason for SkyShowtime’s price is clear: its technical limitations add to its lack of big blockbusters with an indisputable hookLike ‘Game of Thrones’ or ‘Stranger Things’. ‘Halo’ or ‘Yellowstone’ are powerful and of high quality, but they don’t sell the service as clearly. Not even ‘The Office’, which in other times was a millionaire workhorse in the style of ‘Friends’, retains that status, just now that it has reached its final home (it is owned by NBC). And perhaps that absence of bomb products is why it is so cheap.

The image that SkyShowtime gives right now is that of a repository of highly varied products, some more attractive than others, and as we mentioned, highly dependent on the needs of each viewer. But of course, without big hits to overwhelm the competition. The good part, of course, is that there is room for improvement: keeping the price and starting to fill those gaps that we mentioned above has all the cards to become a respectable competitor, something that will benefit us all.