How to stream Rick & Morty in Canada
With season 5 of Rick & Morty set to start (June 20, 2021) and a lot of Canadians will be asking how they can stream the show both live and on demand.
Rick & Morty is an Adult Swim show. Adult Swim is an American adult-oriented nighttime programming block of the basic cable network Cartoon Network that is programmed by its in-house production studio, Williams Street. Adult Swim broadcasts nightly from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. ET/PT.
As Adult Swim is a US network there is no native Adult Swim streaming app in Canada. There was at one point.
From WikiPedia -
In March 2016, [adult swim] Games launched an over-the-top subscription streaming video on demand service for Android and iOS devices that allowed viewers to watch Adult Swim's original programming, including several series that weren't seen on the Canadian block. New episodes were added to the app as soon as they premiered in the United States.Due to licensing and rights issues, several series, such as Mike Tyson Mysteries, Childrens Hospital, Fox animated sitcoms, and essentially all anime programming broadcast on Adult Swim's Toonami programming block in the U.S., weren't available on the service. Originally, Rick and Morty and Robot Chicken premieres were only added after they air in Canada. Beginning with its third season, new episodes of Rick and Morty were added the next day after their American premiere. In 2017, new episodes from Samurai Jack's fifth season were added two days after they premiered on Toonami, while other new premieres from Adult Swim in the U.S were added the day after they aired. The service was removed from app stores in November 2018.
There is an Adult Swim Canadian website:
https://www.adultswim.ca/
It’s useless though unless you want to watch the Season 5 Rick & Morty trailer.
You can also find the schedule of the cable channel Adult Swim in Canada which is operated by Corus.
Adult Swim Canadian Website
For cord cutters the website won’t offer you anything beyond telling you that you can get Stack TV, Corus’ streaming service which we have reviewed previously.
So if you want to stream it in Canada you have a few options.
Corus owns the rights to Adult Swim in Canada. You can use Corus’ Global TV app, but it will require a valid Canadian cable subscription to watch the Adult Swim feed live or on demand. Again kind of useless for cord cutters.
Rick & Morty - Global TV Streaming App
Corus also operates Stack TV as an add on channel subscription through Amazon Prime Canada. An Amazon Prime Canada account costs ($7.99 per month) while Stack TV is ($12.99 per month) but currently (June 2021) is on sale for 50% off.
We already reviewed Stack TV back when it first launched in 2019 and added our 6 month follow up to the review. Most of our concerns with Stack TV back then still apply.
Rick & Morty - Stack TV - Amazon Prime Canada
You can pre purchase Season 5 on iTunes or Google Play where episodes will be added on demand next day after they air.
On Google Play single episodes are $1.99 (SD) or $2.99 (HD) or buy all of season 5 for $18.99 (SD) or $24.99 (HD).
On iTunes single episodes are $3.49 (HD) or buy all of season 5 for $24.99 (HD).
Rick & Morty - Google Play & iTunes Store
There is also the Adult Swim US website, although if you are using this in Canada you’ll need a VPN or something similar.
There is also the Adult Swim US streaming app. Like the Global TV app this app requires a US cable subscription to validate the app. Once you have done that you can watch the episodes live or on demand right after they are broadcast.
Rick & Morty - Adult Swim US Streaming App
In the UK Adult Swim shows are streamed through the All 4 app which is free to use. The episodes are streamed live a day later (Monday’s) in the UK. After they air the episodes are also available on demand almost immediately.
Rick & Morty - All 4 Streaming App
Watching Seasons 1 - 4
In Canada since Corus owns the rights to Adult Swim you would think you would be able to watch seasons 1-4 on either the Global TV app or their paid service Stack TV.
Unfortunately you would be wrong.
As we noted in our original review of Stack TV almost 2 years ago when it launched Stack TV has a lot of holes in it when you start looking under the hood.
What we found is that while it looks like Stack TV has all episodes of seasons 1-4 What they actually have is episodes 1 & 2 of season 1, although there was a note that says it is leaving StackTV in 5-6 days.
They also have episode 8 of season 3. That’s it.
Rick & Morty - Amazon Prime App (Amazon Firestick) Stack TV
On top of that when you scroll through all of the seasons they also have multiple versions of many of episodes. Worse through the Amazon Prime App on the Amazon Firestick or any other device no information is given about why episodes are missing. When you scroll through Stack TV in a browser it just says episode unavailable.
Rick & Morty - Amazon Prime (Web Browser) Stack TV
Stack TV unfortunately continues to be a mess.
So really the only Canadian option is to buy the previous seasons off of the Google Play store or through iTunes. This can be expensive.
In the US, Seasons 1 - 4 of Rick and Morty are available on both Hulu ($11.99) and HBO Max ($14.99).
Rick & Morty - Hulu & HBO Max
If you are interested in learning more about how to get access to Rick & Morty or any other shows feel free to sign up for your free phone consultation today.
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