Yesterday HBO announced it would launch a standalone online video streaming service in 2015, allowing you to access the network’s programming without a cable subscription.
Now another US TV network has launched its own streaming video service. CBS All Access offers 6,500 TV episodes on demand for $6 per month.
Of course, you could always just hook your TV up to an antenna and watch CBS content for free. That’s something that sets the network’s offering apart from whatever it is that HBO will eventually offer. But that antenna won’t get you access to thousands of hours of older programming… I guess that’s the price CBS hopes you’ll pay for convenience.
That might seem like a good deal if you want access to new shows like The Good Wife, Elementary, and NCIS a day after they air as well as access to a large library of older shows including Twin Peaks and Star Trek. In select markets you can also stream TV from a local CBS station live.
But if you pay $6 for CBS content, $8 per month for Netflix, $8 for Hulu Plus, and so on… cord cutters could eventually wind up paying more to watch TV online than you were paying their cable providers.
And don’t forget none of these services is very without an internet connection: so you’re still going to have to pay for that.
Oh yeah, older CBS shows will stream ad-free to CBS All Access subscribers, but currently running series include commercials.
Want to know if CBS All Access is worth the asking price? You can sign up for a 1-week free trial. I find it amusing that the URL for the new service is www.cbs.com/all-access/upsell/.
via CBS News
It looks like I would watch maybe 2 of the 32 “prime time” show offerings and maybe 8 of the 30 “classic” offerings. Most of the “classics” I would watch are avaiabel on Netflix right now so the actual unique offerings are down to about 4 shows.
I just realized that CBS is/was not a major network for me.
“internet connection: so you’re still going to have to pay for that.”
We’re all going to pay for that anyway. That’s not part of the equation. We only end up paying more if we try to get everything. And if you want everything, you should pay for cable.
But a lot of TV providers bundle cable and internet subscriptions. Cancel your TV plan and your internet bill will likely climb higher.
I’m a “cord cutter,” who doesn’t pay for cable TV, but I pay $80 per month for internet access.
Interesting. I didn’t know that. I have Uverse for internet and when I dropped the TV portion, my rate stayed the same. Though I did increase to the highest internet package.
Yep. Same here. Could get a better deal if we added TV and even better if we added phone. But we hate Comcast, so going with minimum.
I agree that these recent offerings, while welcome, do not address the core problem. Broadband is still a very effective monopoly in most communities. With “bundling” legal as a coercive tactic prices are kept absurdly high. Don’t expect any action until a Teddy Roosevelt comes along though, I know from experience how quickly legislators feign eyes glazing over when you directly address them with the abuses currently allowed. Playing dumb is getting to be an overused tactic – they know who is buttering their bread. At the top of the pyramid you have ESPN and the rest of organized crime, er, organized sports.
It would be great if there was a universal app that would act as a container for all these various streaming apps. I have about 8 different apps on my phone, for the various TV channels that offer streaming services.