Channels & viewing

[brassrat]

I have a paid subscription to acorn.tv on the roku channel.  "Midsomer Murders" is part of acorn.tv subscription, yet all episodes (except season 20) still have commercials.  I thought paid subscriptions weren't supposed to have commercials?

[atc98092]

That is totally controlled by the channel provider (Acorn in this case). You'd have to contact them to get an answer to your question. 

I agree that most subscription services remove ads, but some might only kick into lower quantities of ads. I think Hulu might be that way. The lowest cost subscription still has ads, but more expensive plans remove them.

[blade_005]

Midsomer Murders (Seasons 1 - 20) is also available as part of  the free ROKU CHANNEL offerings, which are ad-supported.

You may be accessing Season 20 directly from the free ROKU CHANNEL offering rather than through your ACORN TV subscription. I am not sure how ROKU manages content that is available as free ad-supported content but also available commercial free via a channel subscription. I would double check your selection and make sure you are inside your ACORN TV subscription channel when you select Season 20 for viewing.

[brassrat]

I access acorn.tv through the "roku channel" because that is where the subscription is (not directly with acorn.tv)  And yes, it seems that seasons 1-19 are coming from "Filmrise" source (with ads) while season 20 is coming from acorn.tv (no ads).  I wonder why the roku application won't detect when a paid source and the free source overlap and preferentially use the paid source with no ads?  Instead I cannot get paid source programs without ads !

[atc98092]

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@brassrat wrote:

I access acorn.tv through the "roku channel" because that is where the subscription is (not directly with acorn.tv)  And yes, it seems that seasons 1-19 are coming from "Filmrise" source (with ads) while season 20 is coming from acorn.tv (no ads).  I wonder why the roku application won't detect when a paid source and the free source overlap and preferentially use the paid source with no ads?  Instead I cannot get paid source programs without ads !

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Hard to say if it's on Roku's side or if Acorn isn't feeding it correctly. something tells me that if they are getting one season right, Roku might be doing everything right on their end. But they really need to research it, because it isn't working as you would expect. 

[brassrat]

Roku will not let me contact support directly.  Any idea how to get them to look at this?

[blade_005]

I wasn't saying go outside of the Roku Channel system to access ACORN.TV directly.

Is there not a way to select your ACORN.TV channel from within Roku Channel to ensure that you are accessing the commercial-free version? I don't use subscriptions with Roku. I have ACORN.TV subscription through Amazon Channels and they list a row of my channel subscriptions that I can access and know that I am getting the version that I desire from my monthly subscription and not through some other potential ad-supported offering.

[brassrat]

Actually, I have tried this.  Within the roku channel there is a "browse premium subscriptions" row. This sounds similar to what you have on Amazon Channels.  When I browse acorn.tv for the programs and start from there I still get commercials on seasons 1-19.   This seems to indicate it is more likely a roku problem than an acorn problem.  Unfortunately, roku support will not let me contact them.

[brassrat]

It seems that the content is not totally controlled by the channel provider.

I contacted acorn.tv who said that if the subscription were directly through them (instead of through the roku channel) there would definitely be no commercials.  They told me to contact roku support.

I tried to contact roku support but it has been over a week and all I get is automatic responses.

It seems that if you have a subscription channel that has program overlap with roku channel free programming (with commercials) the roku channel gives priority to the version with commercials.  An undisclosed penalty of subscriptions via the roku channel.

[htpttyo1]

I know your post was a while ago but for your information and anyone that accesses your post.  You can still have your subscription paid for thru your ROKU account but list the channel separately on your home page.  You may not wish to access each channel individually, but I have ACORN and I do not get any commercials for Midsommer or any show.  It's the same for my CBS, prime, BritBox, Disney+ … I have to back out of the current channel and access the new one from the main page on the ROKU TV but I am commercial free.