One has to wonder what CBS CEO, Les Moonves, is smoking inside the confines of CBS headquarters. That isn’t to say he hasn’t helped his network soar to the top of the ratings charts for network TV, he certainly has. However, the approach to their first ever online content streaming service is just all wrong…
For starters, it was just announced yesterday that CBS will indeed offer an “ad-free” tier for CBS All-Access. Gee, how sweet of them. Not so fast though. It’s bad enough the price for no ads will be $9.99 a month (well over what Netflix started at for no ad content), but even more absurd is it technically won’t even be 100% ad-free!!! Can you hear me slapping my hand off my forehead right now?? Good grief, CBS!!! For more specifics, here’s the the full rundown on this catch 22:
“All Access can’t strip out ads from programs streamed live from local CBS TV stations. In addition, “select on-demand shows will include promotional interruptions,” the company said in a statement.
Brilliant, just brilliant! So not only is CBS forcing the customer to spend far more than they would have spent for Netflix over the years, that has oodles of more content and no ads, but they’re essentially guilty of false advertising right out of the gates. If nothing else, aren’t new kids on the block, who are offering a new service, supposed to keep the price down as much as possible?? Think about anytime a new restaurant opens or an apartment complex, it’s very likely you’ll see some of the best deals possible that can be offered to potential new customers. In this case, it’s blatantly obvious that CBS could give a rat’s ass about that simple concept.
Oh but wait, they have ‘Star Trek’ to lure people over. For those who don’t know, a new Star Trek series entitled ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ will be featured as the flagship program for CBS All-Access. This means that aside from the premiere episode airing on live TV in January of 2017,the remaining episodes for season one will only be accessible via having an All-Access membership. And that means you can either pay $5.99 for advertisements, or $9.99 for no advertisements (but really with advertisements).
I think what we have here is a sign of misplaced arrogance, and outright stupidity that people who are already paying for Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu, will want to dip into their wallets for yet another streaming service that CLEARLY has some major issues to be worked out. Just because a new Star Trek series will be the main allure of All-Access doesn’t mean that even die-hard Trekkies will embrace it wholeheartedly. I’d personally rather wait for the Blu-ray with all the bells and whistles, or, or, dare I say, wait for CBS to crack and sell off the distribution rights to Netflix– Considering CBS has already sold off the international distribution rights to Netflix it’s not that far fetched to think they may feel pressure to eventually sell the remaining territory of North America off to them.
Overall, what do you think? When I’ve mentioned this to some folks they’ve not only looked shocked, but also confused as to why this is the planski for CBS going forward. The problem isn’t that CBS wants their own slice of the online streaming community, rather, it’s simply how they’re going about it that will continue to rub the paying consumer the wrong way!! Nuff said.
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