Pros & Cons
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- Varied retro library
- Curated live channels and events
- Free with minimal ads
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- Some genres are better represented than others
- Ho-hum premium subscription
- Lacks parental controls
Shout! TV Specs
| Ads | |
| Anime | |
| Concurrent Streams | Unlimited |
| On-Demand Movies and TV Shows | |
| Original Programming | |
| Starting Price | Free |
Shout! Factory specializes in reviving old, weird, and forgotten movies and TV shows for home video, where modern audiences can enjoy them. It brings that same energy to Shout! TV, a free streaming video service showcasing all sorts of bizarre entertainment curios that would fall through the cracks on larger, big-name services. Shout! TV’s library has a lot of schlocky charm, but it could use a bigger budget to expand the library and add better premium features. If you want to experience an excellent, free streaming platform that can compete with paid rivals, check out Tubi, our Editors' Choice winner.
Plans, Prices, and Platforms
Nearly all of Shout! TV’s library is free with ad support. Shout! TV also offers a paid subscription ($3.99 per month), which provides exclusive content, early access to upcoming shows, and ad-free viewing. It's not the most alluring pitch. The additional material is insubstantial, and you already get basically everything that makes the service appealing for free. You're just removing minor ads, which sometimes feel like a vital part of the experience when watching old TV shows. Another way to remove ads is to subscribe to Shout! TV’s premium Prime Video channel for $2.99 per month.
(Credit: Shout! Factory/PCMag)The easiest way to watch Shout! TV is to stream it via a web browser or an Android or iOS app. Accessing the service through other platforms complicates matters, as Shout! TV distributes portions of its content and channels to other companies, including Plex, Pluto TV, RetroCrush, The Roku Channel, Sling TV, and Tubi. The only way to ensure you can see everything is by watching Shout! TV directly.
What Can You Watch on Shout! TV?
Most free streaming services have older libraries. Unless there's a premium subscription option, reruns are all these streaming platforms can afford. Few lean into this fact as much as Shout! TV does. This isn't the classic vintage cinema you'll find on The Criterion Channel. Instead, you'll find the cheap pop culture detritus that TV channels aired to plug holes in their schedules decades ago. I say that with nothing but love—this is proud schlock.
The library encompasses a wide range of genres. You’ll find Bonanza, the Digimon anime, the 1998 Gwyneth Paltrow dramedy Sliding Doors, Godzilla movies, and every episode of ALF. If you think something wasn't quite popular enough to make the leap from VHS to DVD, you might find it here. Netflix may have a hit show based on Glow, but Shout! TV has the original Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. Even the channel's original movies tend to celebrate old shows, like a documentary about Power Rangers fan conventions.
Some genres get far more love than others. No genre is as synonymous with schlock as horror, and Shout! TV has hundreds of horror movies. They include Elvira flicks, the original Willard, Sharknado retrospectives, and something called Army of Frankensteins. For comparison, it only has about 30 entries under crime TV and just a single baseball show under sports (unless you count Speed Racer).
Alongside the on-demand content, Shout! TV has "live" channels, which are 24/7 broadcasts dedicated to specific topics (this isn't actual live TV, as provided by Hulu). Scream Factory TV plays nonstop horror, while the Mystery Science Theater 3000 channel plays nonstop mockery of said horror. Other channels include The Carol Burnett Show and Johnny Carson TV. Shout! TV also occasionally broadcasts live events, like Patton Oswalt's hand-picked B-movie marathon. It’s like going to a local film festival. Shout! Factory hosts a Twitch channel, which lets you chat with fellow users while viewing live broadcasts. You can also watch archived events in case you missed them.
(Credit: Shout! Factory/PCMag)Shout! TV on the Web and Mobile
Shout! TV’s website is pretty basic, although you now need an account to view content. The main page features a large carousel that rotates through movies, shows, or curated catalogs, such as AAPI Heritage Month. Beneath that, you'll find live channels, newly added videos for the month, and other highlights. Along with the search bar, the top navigation links to films, TV, live channels, and events. Each also has subcategories where you can search through specific genres, such as Animation or Werner Herzog.
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Since it's free, you can stream Shout! TV on an unlimited number of devices, and playback was smooth over my home Wi-Fi connection (60Mbps download). I recommend upping the resolution to 1080p for the best picture quality. Listings show related videos, and you can add videos to a watchlist or share them through social media. The experience is smoother than it used to be, but still very basic.
In testing, the commercials were surprisingly infrequent. In fact, I didn't encounter a single one while watching a half-hour episode of the 1970s Kamen Rider series. Meanwhile, the Johnny Carson live channel had two-minute-long ads promoting the channel itself.
The mobile app is essentially a shrunken-down version of the website, visually similar and with the same functionality. Unsurprisingly, you can’t download videos for offline viewing, a perk found in more premium services like Hulu and Netflix.
(Credit: Shout! Factory/PCMag)Accessibility and Parental Controls
As a free service with no accounts, there’s basically nothing stopping young viewers from watching all the kinky exploitation movies they want on Shout! TV. Mature videos require you to verify your age, but that can be easily faked. Parents should hope that the old library is enough of a turn-off for young viewers; it has big boomer energy.
Shout! TV also lacks modern accessibility features. More videos now feature English subtitles, including foreign-language shows, although the customization options are limited. You can also adjust playback speed.
Can You Watch Shout! TV With a VPN
The only thing scarier than the gnarliest horror movie is browsing the internet without the protection of a VPN. Unfortunately, gaining that digital security often means losing access to streaming video services, unless they’re VPN-friendly, since spoofing your location interferes with regional licensing deals.
While connected to US-based ProtonVPN servers on a Windows PC, I streamed Shout! TV, even though the playback was a hair slower. However, once I switched to international servers, I received a message stating that the content wasn't available in my country. Bummer.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Shout! Factory)
Shout! TV
Shout! TV offers a free and fun collection of retro TV shows and cult-classic movies, but the overall streaming experience could use some polish.