Spectrum TV Customers Now Get Vix Premium with Ads for Free, Here’s How to Sign Up

Spectrum TV is continuing to deepen its ties with on-demand streaming services. The cable service has announced that it is following through on a pledge first made in January, by allowing viewers with Spectrum TV Select or Mi Plan Latino cable packages to receive free access to the new ViX Premium with Ads plan. ViX becomes the third on-demand streaming service to offer free subscriptions to Spectrum TV customers, and it demonstrates what a unique path Spectrum and its parent company Charter Communications are plotting as they try to stave off the ravages of cord-cutting.

Key Details:

• Qualifying Spectrum TV customers can head to a special website and sign up for their free ViX account.
• The streamer will allow viewers to watch the Copa America and UEFA Euro finals, along with thousands of hours of on-demand programming.
• Spectrum TV customers also get no-cost Disney+ and Paramount+ accounts, as well as ESPN+ in some cases.

Customers with Spectrum TV Select or Mi Plan Latino subscriptions can go to www.spectrum.com/get-vix to subscribe for their free account. All that they need to do is press “Activate Now” and follow all the on-screen prompts to set up their ViX Premium with Ads subscription, and then they can start browsing the service in mere minutes.

ViX Premium with Ads offers 17,000 hours of movies, original series, and even live sports, such as the 2024 Copa America and UEFA Euro finals with limited commercial interruptions. Titles available include “Lalola,” “El Extraño Retorno de Diana Salazar,” “El Gallo de Oro,” and “De Viaje con los Derbez”; hit movies “Es por su bien,” “Radical,” and “¿Quieres ser mi hijo?,” and the most anticipated new releases coming this summer and fall, including “Chiquis Sin Filtro” and “Y Llegaron de Noche.”

“The addition of ViX’s Premium with Ads to our Spectrum TV Select and Mi Plan Latino plans will enable our customers to watch even more premium Spanish-language content as part of their Spectrum video service,” Charter’s EVP for programming acquisition Tom Montemagno said. “By working with our programming partners to include streaming apps like ViX in our video packages at no extra cost, we continue to evolve our new video paradigm with extraordinary additional value for customers.”

How is Spectrum TV’s Strategy Different from Other Cable Companies?

Spectrum TV is leaning into the popularity of on-demand streaming, at a time when most other cable distributors see it as a threat. It’s a wise move, as it creates enhanced value in the minds of customers, and it gives Spectrum TV subscribers a way to keep more of their entertainment choices on a single monthly bill.

Disney+ was the first domino to fall in Spectrum’s plan to deliver more streaming options to its customers. Disney and Spectrum got into a nasty carriage dispute last year when Spectrum proposed giving viewers no-cost access to a Disney+ account as a way to keep them from having to pay multiple times for the same content found on Disney-owned cable channels. Disney dug in its heels for weeks, but the approach of the 2023 NFL season caused a softening in its stance, and it finally agreed to allow Spectrum TV Select customers to sign up for free Disney+ Basic accounts in early September. Spectrum TV Select Plus customers also got a free ESPN+ account as part of the deal.

Paramount+ came next, and no carriage dispute was needed to convince it to give Spectrum TV Select customers a free account. The deal between the two sides was first announced in May, so it will likely be another month or two before customers can actually sign up for their free Paramount+ accounts. That agreement also saw Spectrum TV Select and Mi Plan Latino viewers get access to a free BET+ account.

Spectrum is also firing up new streaming options of its own. In April, the company announced that it was introducing two new cable channel bundles delivered via broadband: Spectrum TV Stream and Spectrum Stream Latino. The packages were designed to be more budget-friendly, skipping channels like local broadcast networks and big-name sports outlets like ESPN in favor of a lower monthly cost.

As the largest cable provider in the United States, Spectrum can provide these streamers with an instant customer base, as well as a wholesale subscription rate for all of them. That doesn’t give streaming providers exactly the same revenue that they’d get if viewers sought out their services individually, but it does create a new cohort of customers that is less likely to cancel thanks to the fact that their subscriptions are bundled with their cable plan. Streamers also get to keep the ad revenue generated by having this audience watching their ad-supported tiers.

While most other cablers try to keep on-demand streaming at arm’s length, Spectrum is welcoming it. Whether it will help Spectrum TV continue on for longer than other cable companies remains to be seen, but it’s a fascinating strategy nonetheless.