Amazon Prime seems to be expanding almost constantly, with new features and options added regularly. One of the most ambitious of those is Amazon Channels, which lets you customise your Amazon Video set-up by adding on an assortment of other TV and streaming services.
Amazon Channels is a Prime exclusive, so you’ll need to already have a subscription to Amazon Prime if you want to take advantage.
It’s a bit of a unique setup, and might seem confusing at first (it definitely confused us). So here’s everything you need to know about Channels.
What are Amazon Channels?
Amazon Channels is really a collection of various different streaming services which you can subscribe to through Prime Video. You pay a separate subscription fee for each channel, which gives you access to content not available through the rest of Prime Video.
The available channels are a mixture of live content and catch-up drawn from TV channels, film studios, and even rival streaming platforms. In the UK for example there’s the ITV Hub+, which includes catch-up content from the TV channel; Eurosport for live and catch-up sports coverage; a film channel featuring movies from the studio MGM; and channels for Mubi and Shudder, two rival streaming services focussing on arthouse film and horror movies respectively.
You sign up for each channel individually, so you pick and choose which content you’re interested in – sort of like picking the channels in your satellite or cable TV package.
Most conveniently, you then get to browse and watch all of your channels through all the normal Amazon Video sources – the website, the smartphone and tablet apps, and through your games console or other devices. Essentially it lets you sign up to multiple streaming services without having to worry about multiple apps, accounts, and passwords. Everything just gets handled through Amazon.
How much do they cost?
Pricing varies depending on which channels you opt for. Channels range from £1.49/$2.99 up to £9.99/$14.99 per month, though most tend to sit around £4.99/$4.99 per month.
Bear in mind that you’ll still need to have an existing Amazon Prime subscription to take advantage. You can pay an upfront sum of £79/$99, which works out at £6.58/$8.25 per month. Don’t forget to take advantage of the 30-day free trial first, though.
You also have the option to pay for the full Amazon Prime service for £7.99/$12.99 per month, or just £5.99/$8.99 per month for only Prime Video, which will still give you access to Channels.
Is there a free trial?
Yup! Every channel in the service offers a free trial, though they vary a bit. Most are just seven days, but we’ve seen some that are as long as three months, so check out the details of specific channels.
Amazon Prime itself offers a 30-day free trial, so that’s the limit of how much you can try for free without paying anything at all if you’re not already a Prime member.
Does it include Netflix?
In brief: no. While Amazon Channels aims to bring a range of streaming services under one roof, it’s mostly drawn in smaller rivals, rather than its biggest competitors.
That means no Netflix, and no Now TV in the UK, or Hulu in the US. Amazon has said that it isn’t ruling out bringing those services on board, but we wouldn’t hold your breath: it’s almost impossible to imagine Netflix ever giving up a chunk of its subscriptions to Amazon.
What channels are available?
Channel lists vary depending on region, but here are the main ones in the UK, with the US channels below that. These channel lists and prices are correct at the time of writing, but may change, and aren’t comprehensive – we’ll try to keep them up to date, but there may well be some discrepancies.
UK channels
Acacia TV (£5.99 per month) Arrow Video (£4.99 per month) Arrow TV (£4.99 per month) Azoomee (£3.99 per month) B4U (£2.99 per month) BFI Player+ (£4.99 per month) BeFit (£5.99 per month) Curiosity Stream (£5.49 per month) Daily Burn (£9.99 per month) Discovery (£4.99 per month) Discovery Kids (£3.99 per month) Docsville (£3.99 per month) Echoboom Sports (£3.99 per month) Eros Now (£5.99 per month) Eurosport Player (£4.99 per month) Fandor (£3.49 per month) Filmbox (£3.99 per month) Gaia (£7.99 per month) Hayu (£3.99 per month) Here TV (£3.99 per month) Hopster (£3.99 per month) Horse & Country (£3.99 per month) ITV Hub+ – (£3.99 per month) Kriminal (£2.99 per month) Love Nature (£3.99 per month) MGM (£4.49 per month) More Milkshake! (£2.99 per month) Motorvision (£2.99 per month) Mubi (£5.99 per month) Nautical Channel (£3.99 per month) NextUp Comedy (£3.50 per month) Panna (£1.49 per month) Pinoy Box Office (£1.99 per month) Planet Knowledge (£2.29 per month) Pongalo Next (£2.99 per month) Qello Concerts (£5.99 per month) Realeyz (£4.99 per month) Rooster Teeth (£3.99 per month) Shudder (£4.99 per month) Starzplay (£4.99 per month) Stingray Classic (£5.99 per month) Stingray Karaoke (£5.99 per month) Studio Universal Classics (£3.99 per month) Sundance Now (£5.99 per month) SweatFlix (£9.49 per month) Tastemade (£1.99 per month) The Great Courses Signature Collection (£5.49 per month) TV1000 (£2.99 per month) Up Family (£3.49 per month) Viewster Anime (£2.99 per month) Yoga Anytime Channel (£6.99 per month)
US channels
HBO ($14.99 per month) Showtime ($8.99 per month) Cinemax ($9.99 per month) Starz ($8.99 per month) Mubi ($5.99 per month) Sundance Now ($6.99 per month) Sports Illustrated TV ($4.99 per month) Comic Con HQ ($4.99 per month) History Vault ($4.99 per month) Comedy Central Stand-Up ($3.99 per month) PBS Masterpiece ($5.99 per month) IndiePix Unlimited ($5.99 per month) DocComTV ($2.99 per month) Smithsonian Earth ($3.99 per month) Reelz ($3.99 per month) Daily Burn ($14.99 per month) PBS Kids ($4.99 per month) Shudder ($4.99 per month) Cheddar ($2.99 per month)
Author: Dominic Preston, Contributor, Tech Advisor
Previously Tech Advisor's Deputy Editor, Dom covers everything that runs on electricity, from phones and laptops to wearables, audio, gaming, smart home, and streaming.