Philo is a dwell TV streaming service borne from determined instances. Its primary community backers—Discovery, Viacom, and AMC—must various levels discovered themselves forged out of different streaming bundles, largely as a result of they don’t carry any sports activities programming. Rather than sit idly by, they’ve banded collectively to launch their very own bundle, with no sports activities however a low price ticket.

At $20 per 30 days, Philo is likely one of the most cost-effective bundles of cable channels you may get over the web as we speak. If you’re into the truth TV fare that a lot of Philo’s channels concentrate on, it may very well be the solely streaming service you want, however it additionally pairs nicely with other streaming services or with over-the-air broadcasts from an antenna.

Philo: What you get

Philo’s fundamental $20-per-month package deal provides greater than 40 channels, together with AMC, HGTV, History, Discovery, and Nickelodeon. Another $4 per 30 days will get you a dozen extra channels, together with Cooking Channel, Nicktoons, and Discovery Family.

Updated August 12, 2019 to mirror the latest adjustments to Philio’s providing and its subscription worth.Our bottom-line rating of 4 stars has not modified since our final replace.

Equally notable are the channels Philo doesn’t carry. In common, if a community owns any sports activities programming in any way, Philo doesn’t provide any of that community’s channels. That guidelines out all 4 main broadcast networks—ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox—together with any non-sports channels owned by the identical corporations, such because the Disney channel and NBC’s Bravo. Turner networks, reminiscent of TNT and TBS, are absent as properly. The greater networks simply don’t wish to uncouple their costly sports activities channels from their cheaper non-sports ones, and Philo errs on the aspect of not making prospects pay for sports activities channels they don’t need.

What’s left is a comparatively cheap bundle pushed largely by actuality and documentary-style TV reveals, with a touch of scripted programming and flicks from the likes of AMC and Comedy Central. Subscribers get three streams at a time that work wherever inside the United States, and since sports activities are absent, there are not any arcane guidelines for when and the place you’re allowed to observe explicit applications.

For DVR, Philo opted for limitless storage with a 30-day time restrict and no restrictions on ad-skipping for these recorded applications. You may replay something that’s aired up to now few days on most channels. This won’t be superb should you have a tendency to observe recordings over a protracted time period, however it does can help you save a number of reveals with out having to handle cupboard space. (Some dwell TV companies, reminiscent of Hulu with Live TV and Sling TV, make the other trade-off, offering restricted cupboard space as a substitute of limiting how lengthy recorded reveals could be saved.)

Philo retains it easy

Philo’s apps have at all times been clear and easy, with a small variety of menus for looking well-liked applications, dwell TV, and favorites. You gained’t get misplaced in labyrinthine menu methods or surprise the place your DVR applications went, although I do want Philo went a little bit additional in surfacing new applications that is perhaps of curiosity. As it stands, the house display screen provides solely generic suggestions (hope you want Ex on the Beach), and there’s no option to filter the catalog for issues like films or particular genres.