Later this week Comcast will roll out Xfinity Streampix, a streaming on-demand service available free to high-end subscribers, and for a lower-than-Netflix rate of $4.99 to users with more basic packages. Adding to the catalog of its previous Web and iPad streaming service, XfinityTV, the new offering will include "older, back-catalog content" through deals with Disney, NBC Universal, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros., writes Ryan Lawler.
"Importantly, Comcast has no plans to make Streampix available as a standalone service: To get it, you must subscribe to both Comcast’s TV and broadband services," writes Lawler. "That means so-called cord-cutters, or Internet-only subscribers, need not apply."