Time Warner / HBO / Cinemax decide. As does their budget.
And oh, yeah, the competition decides too.
The movie studios have made some deals with the various pay channels such that the channels can be assured that they'll get the latest releases from the various studios in exclusive arrangements. For example, Starz! may have a deal with Disney so that all of the latest and greatest Disney/Pixar movies air on Starz! exclusively for some period of time before those same movies can appear on other cable channels or on broadcast TV networks/stations.
HBO and Cinemax are paired up so what one gets the other will get later, except that Cinemax never airs HBO's original series and special events (boxing, comedy specials, etc.)
Showtime and The Movie Channel are paired up also, so those two also show the same movies eventually. Showtime airs their own original series (Weeds, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Californication, Call Girls, Penn and Teller: BS! and more) and those are not shown on The Movie Channel (TMC).
Starz! has some original series now, but not much programming of that type. They are primarily a premium movie channel. Eventually the movies that air on Starz! will wind up on their partner channels at Encore.
If you mostly want movies then your best bet is subscribe to Starz! They tend to have the best of the available movies currently. They don't air much original programming so their bread and butter is movies. HBO has a lot of original programming and they get subscribers for that programming more than for movies any more, so they don't tend to have that many major movies to run. Same with Showtime.
To save a little money, you should be aware that Starz! tends to repeat the movies they show frequently over about a 3 month period. You could subscribe to them for about 3 months, watch as many of the movies they are showing as you can/want, then switch to HBO and/or Cinemax for a few months, and perhaps over to Showtime for a little after that, and then finally switch back to Starz! for a while after that. Most cable companies and DirecTV and Dish Network will let you switch though all of them may charge you if you try to change too frequently (you normally have to stay subscribed to the premium channels for at least a month to avoid paying a change/termination fee for dropping the premium channel or changing to another one).
Hope this helps.
And oh, yeah, the competition decides too.
The movie studios have made some deals with the various pay channels such that the channels can be assured that they'll get the latest releases from the various studios in exclusive arrangements. For example, Starz! may have a deal with Disney so that all of the latest and greatest Disney/Pixar movies air on Starz! exclusively for some period of time before those same movies can appear on other cable channels or on broadcast TV networks/stations.
HBO and Cinemax are paired up so what one gets the other will get later, except that Cinemax never airs HBO's original series and special events (boxing, comedy specials, etc.)
Showtime and The Movie Channel are paired up also, so those two also show the same movies eventually. Showtime airs their own original series (Weeds, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Californication, Call Girls, Penn and Teller: BS! and more) and those are not shown on The Movie Channel (TMC).
Starz! has some original series now, but not much programming of that type. They are primarily a premium movie channel. Eventually the movies that air on Starz! will wind up on their partner channels at Encore.
If you mostly want movies then your best bet is subscribe to Starz! They tend to have the best of the available movies currently. They don't air much original programming so their bread and butter is movies. HBO has a lot of original programming and they get subscribers for that programming more than for movies any more, so they don't tend to have that many major movies to run. Same with Showtime.
To save a little money, you should be aware that Starz! tends to repeat the movies they show frequently over about a 3 month period. You could subscribe to them for about 3 months, watch as many of the movies they are showing as you can/want, then switch to HBO and/or Cinemax for a few months, and perhaps over to Showtime for a little after that, and then finally switch back to Starz! for a while after that. Most cable companies and DirecTV and Dish Network will let you switch though all of them may charge you if you try to change too frequently (you normally have to stay subscribed to the premium channels for at least a month to avoid paying a change/termination fee for dropping the premium channel or changing to another one).
Hope this helps.
