Roku announced a first of its kind promotion today, a 5 day streaming marathon of sorts that will allow Roku owners to watch tons of content through the Feature Free portal that is included on the home screen of Roku’s players and licensed TV’s. Featured Free is designed to help Roku owners and its partners find each other with TV shows and movies from across an array of services ranging from 100 percent free content to selected episodes of TV shows from cable and broadcast TV networks via TV everywhere apps.
On December 26, which not coincidently is the day after lots of people will likely receive Roku’s for Christmas (if sales on Black Friday are any indication) people home from work will have a chance to take in a lot of the offerings that Roku provides including content from a number of paid apps that would otherwise not be available through the portal.
By providing content from services like Acorn TV the company could entice customers into jumping aboard with services they might have otherwise never even discovered. Why? Because despite years of growth in streaming services most people, to a large degree only seem to acknowledge Netflix and Amazon as streaming services ignoring thousands of other possible options.
Top Shows for Free
Premium entertainment such as the first full season of “Deep State” from EPIX will be available to Roku customers. Additionally, select full seasons and episodes of popular shows such as “Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution” and “Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death” (Acorn TV); “Rick and Morty” (Adult Swim); “Storm Chasers” (Discovery); “Diners, Drive-in and Dives” and “Beat Bobby Flay” (Food Network); “Fixer Upper” and “Property Brothers,” (HGTV); “Two Minute Tales” (Hopster); “Making It” and “New Amsterdam” (NBC); “My Big Fat Fabulous Life” (TLC); “Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern” and “Ghost Adventures” (Travel Channel), and more will be available for free for Roku customers to enjoy.
In some cases the offerings will be from partner channels that typically require a pay TV subscription in order to access the content. This may entice users to add TV replacement services like Sling TV and DirecTV Now in order to continue to watch the shows they discovered. In general the promotion is a very smart way to market the Roku platform and will likely provide the company and its partners with an advertising windfall.
How Do I get Feature Free?
If your Roku supports it you probably already have it. It showed up with OS updates months ago. The Feature free option should be listed on the home page menu on the left side of your screen.
How Much Does Featured Free Cost?
Featured Free doesn’t cost anything. just click and enjoy.
How Do I get feature free if I don’t already have it?
Make sure your Roku has the latest operating system. Your Roku should have updated itself. If your model has the most recent updates and still does not have feature free, you may have a model too old to support the offering.
