Shout! Factory brings classics and cult TV, movies to Net

Mike Snider | USA TODAY

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Home video company Shout! Factory is making its library of movies, specials and TV shows such as Dennis the Menace and Mystery Science Theater 3000 available on a new free, ad-supported streaming service.

Available today at ShoutFactoryTV.com and on Roku streaming video devices, Shout! Factory TV has more than 2,500 hours of movies and full-length TV episodes from Father Knows Best to It's Garry Shandling's Show. The film library includes cult films from Roger Corman (Candy Stripe Nurses, Cover Girl Models) and 16 films from Werner Herzog (Fitzcarraldo, Nosferatu the Vampyre).

Also available: Steve Martin: Wild and Crazy Guy, Hoop Dreams and Stagecoach.

Shout! Factory releases DVDs, Blu-ray Discs and music and has a strong social media following (more than 300,000). And many of the titles have built-in audiences, says Shout! Factory's co-founder Garson Foos.

"We have been exploring various ways to grow our digital business over the years and we felt that the time was right to launch a direct-to-consumer streaming service," he said. "As major services are being more particular with their content offerings, we feel that there is still an unmet need for the classic/cult/niche content that we are very knowledgeable about and it's an opportunity we are well positioned to exploit."

Shout Factory TV will present video in the highest quality video available, some standard definition and others HD. For now, in addition to watching on ShoutFactoryTV.com, viewers can use the Roku app on mobile devices. Apps for Android and iOS are in the works.

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