Showtime is one of the most popular American premium cable and satellite channel that is owned by the very famous CBS Corporation. It was launched back in 1978 and had as little as 10,000 subscribers which grew in the first year only to reach 55,000 subscribers. Today it has tens of millions of subscribers all over the world. In 2015 it launched its online streaming website with countless on-demand contents. Sadly the online service is geo-blocked to the US meaning that the website can only be accessed by users residing within the US. When users tried to access Showtime from anywhere outside of the US the below error message would appear preventing them from accessing the website.
Since the online streaming has lately been on a much higher demand than the basic television, satellite or cable, this caused all the fans of Showtime worldwide a massive inconvenience. It felt extremely unfair that such a great online streaming website existed yet it cannot be accessed due to geographical location. Fortunately there is a solution for this problem today which is the acquiring and use of a Virtual Private Network or VPN service.
Ever since the introduction of the VPN technology into the market and nothing has become impossible anymore. VPNs gave the ability to their users to bypass any online restrictions, whether they are geo-restrictions such as that placed on Showtime or if it’s online censorship placed by governments such as those taking place in China, Russia, and several other countries around the world. In addition to that, a VPN ensures its users complete online privacy and security.
You are welcome to use any VPN provider you prefer, however, you must make sure of the following points:
1- You must have a full subscription to a reliable VPN service.
2- The VPN that you use must have or operate at least one server located within the US
3- The VPN server must provide high connection speeds (either through optimized servers for video streaming or through anti-throttling features)
The VPN that we chose for this tutorial is bVPN which is a Netherlands based provider that started operating in 2014. In a matter of only a few years it succeeded in making a very big name for itself among its competitors in the market due to its countless unique and advanced features in the field of online freedom, security, and privacy. When it came to accessing Showtime, bVPN met all the requirements needed and more. Its users enjoy extremely stable connections and the ability to choose from multiple servers located within the US. The bVPN application has built in anti-throttling capabilities to be able to enjoy the highest connection speeds possible.
In this tutorial we will be showing you, step-by-step, how to access Showtime using bVPN from anywhere in the world, outside of the US.
How to Access Showtime
1- If your browser is open to Showtime, close it
2- Open your bVPN application from the location you saved it in
3- If you are not logged in already, click on “Log In” at the top of the application window
4- Type in your VPN credentials and click on the “Log In” button below the credentials fields
5- At the top of the application window, click on “Connect” to go back to the main section
6- Click on the “Location” icon to open the list of available servers
7- From the list of servers on the right, choose one of the servers located in the US and make sure, from the ping test result next to each server, that it provides the highest connection speed
8- Click on the “Connect” button in the middle
9- Once the connection is established, minimize the bVPN window
10- Open your browser and go to the Showtime website (www.showtime.com)
At this point you have accessed the Showtime website as if you are located in the US. You can either sign in, if you already have an account, sign up, if you don’t, or apply for the free trial. Enjoy.
