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Forbes feels it's a terrible move to make people pay to watch ST

Last month:

"I gave a week's pay to Alec Peters. Well worth it."

Now:

"$5.99!! That's outrageous!! Fuck you, CBS!!"

But you don't spend 6 bucks on a month only on Star Trek, you spend money on the CBS service, so besides Star Trek what does this service offer, old episodes of Two and a Half Men? If people sign up to watch Star Trek and then ditch the service after they have watched the first season, will this service be thriving? Netflix and Hulu have far greater libraries, CBS thinking Star Trek alone makes this service a contender against other online services, CBS is not being realistic. If the service fails, Star Trek fails, so beyond the new Star Trek show, CBS will have to do a lot of work to make their service better.
 
If the service fails and Star Trek is successful, they will find another outlet for it, whether it be CBS, The CW, Showtime or even Netflix, Amazon or Hulu. Star Trek and CBSAA are not mutually dependent.
 
If the service fails and Star Trek is successful, they will find another outlet for it, whether it be CBS, The CW, Showtime or even Netflix, Amazon or Hulu. Star Trek and CBSAA are not mutually dependent.

Unless they are measuring the success of the series on the success of the service. It will be impossible not to link them. Most people didn't even know it existed until this show was announced. I suppose if the show wins Emmy awards it will be a measure of success. Even critically acclaimed shows get cancelled when ratings drop though and streaming shows don't have the same ratings measurements as traditional television. CBS isn't going to keep paying for something if they can't make a lot of money from it.
 
If the service fails and Star Trek is successful, they will find another outlet for it, whether it be CBS, The CW, Showtime or even Netflix, Amazon or Hulu. Star Trek and CBSAA are not mutually dependent.

Unless they are measuring the success of the series on the success of the service. It will be impossible not to link them. Most people didn't even know it existed until this show was announced. I suppose if the show wins Emmy awards it will be a measure of success. Even critically acclaimed shows get cancelled when ratings drop though and streaming shows don't have the same ratings measurements as traditional television. CBS isn't going to keep paying for something if they can't make a lot of money from it.

But CBS All Access isn't going to be the shows only source of revenue and viewing numbers. Foreign distributors will pick it up. Their audience reactions will likely have more to do with whether the show remains in production than subscriptions to CBS All Access.
 
Can't wait to see how the new Diddly-Bumpians look like.
 
Last edited:
Moonves continued, discussing the international plans for extended distribution.
"All the series have done well in terms of streaming. Added in to that, "Star Trek" is a huge international franchise. Our international distribution guy is going crazy; he can't wait to get out to the marketplace and sell that.
Right away, we're more than halfway home on the cost of the show from international alone. The risk is small in seeing the track record. We think it'll be great and bring in a lot more subscribers. We're really excited about it.
[The new show is] world-class effort that will make all "Star Trek" fans proud."
 
Last month:

"I gave a week's pay to Alec Peters. Well worth it."

Now:

"$5.99!! That's outrageous!! Fuck you, CBS!!"

But you don't spend 6 bucks on a month only on Star Trek, you spend money on the CBS service, so besides Star Trek what does this service offer, old episodes of Two and a Half Men?

It will probably be the only place you'll be able to stream any Trek if it takes off.
 
If the service fails and Star Trek is successful, they will find another outlet for it, whether it be CBS, The CW, Showtime or even Netflix, Amazon or Hulu. Star Trek and CBSAA are not mutually dependent.

Unless they are measuring the success of the series on the success of the service. It will be impossible not to link them. Most people didn't even know it existed until this show was announced. I suppose if the show wins Emmy awards it will be a measure of success. Even critically acclaimed shows get cancelled when ratings drop though and streaming shows don't have the same ratings measurements as traditional television. CBS isn't going to keep paying for something if they can't make a lot of money from it.


But CBS All Access isn't going to be the shows only source of revenue and viewing numbers. Foreign distributors will pick it up. Their audience reactions will likely have more to do with whether the show remains in production than subscriptions to CBS All Access.
We'll see. I'm not discounting Moonves' comments about how excited those markets are, but I've already seen people talking about pirating it rather than pay for CBSAA. And a lot of shows don't air the same time in all countries -- even when they are streaming. If you look at the launch schedules for Netflix and Amazon shows there are sometimes months between when they're available in different countries. None of us knows what to expect with this, but by the time the show reaches some of those markets the whole series could be available on a torrent.

Obviously it's super early and I want to be optimistic. Hopefully we start finding out more details in the next few months.
 
Last month:

"I gave a week's pay to Alec Peters. Well worth it."

Now:

"$5.99!! That's outrageous!! Fuck you, CBS!!"

But you don't spend 6 bucks on a month only on Star Trek, you spend money on the CBS service, so besides Star Trek what does this service offer, old episodes of Two and a Half Men?

It will probably be the only place you'll be able to stream any Trek if it takes off.

That is still not enough to convince most people to choose this service over Netflix or Hulu. CBS All access still only has content from one network, while Netflix and Hulu has content from several different channels, CBS All Access's library is pathetic compared to other streaming services, they don't even have stuff from Showtime on it.

Really Star Trek has been on other platforms and DVD box sets for a long time now, putting all the past shows on All Access wouldn't convince me to buy a subscription.

I think CBS is setting this show up to fail if it expects it to make this rather lame service viable by itself.
CBS needs a lot more then just Star Trek to turn things around for this service.
 
I'm not sure people should necessarily count on this service still being $6 when Star Trek launches either.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nfl-coming-cbs-all-access-815150

CBS hinted again that NFL games could eventually be offered on its CBS All Access, its $5.99 per month streaming service, though the price would need to rise.

"The math, from where we sit, is pretty exciting," said CBS Corp. COO Joe Ianniello. "There's definitely upside value. The $6 seems to be the right price point without it, and we'll see where it goes if we can obtain it. But it's going to be win-win. It will be a win for the NFL, a win for CBS and a win for the consumer. … There's absolutely value in that product."

Ianniello was speaking at Nomura's Media & Telecom Conference. Negotiations with the NFL are obviously progressing slowly, as CBS CEO Leslie Moonves said five months ago that it was his goal to put NFL games on CBS All Access.

A CBS insider later told The Hollywood Reporter that negotiations are indeed underway, but it's likely too late to get NFL games on CBS All Access this season.
 
CBS All access still only has content from one network...

That isn't true.

My point still stands, CBS All Access has a vastly inferior library to Netflix, Hulu, etc. If CBS just put this show on one of the more popular streaming site, that most people already subscribe too, people would be complaining a lot less about distribution. Besides Star Trek, what is appealing about this service compared to Netflix, Amazon and Hulu? Not everyone is going to fork over money to every streaming site out there, they will have to pick and choose.

Do they have any cable shows on CBS All Access, or is it just network TV, because if its just network TV, with none of the stuff on cable, I'm already totally uninterested? Netflix has Breaking Bad and House of Cards, what does All Access have to compete with shows of those genres? People have compared this to getting HBO just to watch Game of Thrones, but with HBO Go, there are some reasons to stick around after Game of Thrones ends, like watching classic series like the Wire. I don't think CBS gives people much reason to stick around after watching Star Trek.

Trying to force people to subscribe to an inferior streaming service by making that the only place to see this new show, I think is unfair and puts a lot of pressure on a show to save a substandard streaming service.

Frankly, since I live in Canada, I hope CBS just sells the Canadian rights to Netflix or something, makes my viewing easier.
 
My point still stands, CBS All Access has a vastly inferior library to Netflix, Hulu, etc. If CBS just put this show on one of the more popular streaming site, that most people already subscribe too, people would be complaining a lot less about distribution. Besides Star Trek, what is appealing about this service compared to Netflix, Amazon and Hulu? Not everyone is going to fork over money to every streaming site out there, they will have to pick and choose.

Do they have any cable shows on CBS All Access, or is it just network TV, because if its just network TV, with none of the stuff on cable, I'm already totally uninterested? Netflix has Breaking Bad and House of Cards, what does All Access have to compete with shows of those genres? People have compared this to getting HBO just to watch Game of Thrones, but with HBO Go, there are some reasons to stick around after Game of Thrones ends, like watching classic series like the Wire. I don't think CBS gives people much reason to stick around after watching Star Trek.

Trying to force people to subscribe to an inferior streaming service by making that the only place to see this new show, I think is unfair and puts a lot of pressure on a show to save a substandard streaming service.

Frankly, since I live in Canada, I hope CBS just sells the Canadian rights to Netflix or something, makes my viewing easier.

This is all true now. If CBS were to release the new Star Trek on its site tomorrow (which would be amazing!), then your points would be valid and the show would probably struggle to gain subscribers in the general audience.

However, this is still 14 months away. The plan is for Trek to be its first original program on the service. In order to bring subscribers over, I have no doubt that the entire site will be revamped and greatly expanded by then. I've suggested that it may work better if they were to involve their subsidiary Showtime and utilize some of their content in some way.
 
My point still stands, CBS All Access has a vastly inferior library to Netflix, Hulu, etc. If CBS just put this show on one of the more popular streaming site, that most people already subscribe too, people would be complaining a lot less about distribution. Besides Star Trek, what is appealing about this service compared to Netflix, Amazon and Hulu? Not everyone is going to fork over money to every streaming site out there, they will have to pick and choose.

Do they have any cable shows on CBS All Access, or is it just network TV, because if its just network TV, with none of the stuff on cable, I'm already totally uninterested? Netflix has Breaking Bad and House of Cards, what does All Access have to compete with shows of those genres? People have compared this to getting HBO just to watch Game of Thrones, but with HBO Go, there are some reasons to stick around after Game of Thrones ends, like watching classic series like the Wire. I don't think CBS gives people much reason to stick around after watching Star Trek.

Trying to force people to subscribe to an inferior streaming service by making that the only place to see this new show, I think is unfair and puts a lot of pressure on a show to save a substandard streaming service.

Frankly, since I live in Canada, I hope CBS just sells the Canadian rights to Netflix or something, makes my viewing easier.

This is all true now. If CBS were to release the new Star Trek on its site tomorrow (which would be amazing!), then your points would be valid and the show would probably struggle to gain subscribers in the general audience.

However, this is still 14 months away. The plan is for Trek to be its first original program on the service. In order to bring subscribers over, I have no doubt that the entire site will be revamped and greatly expanded by then. I've suggested that it may work better if they were to involve their subsidiary Showtime and utilize some of their content in some way.

Showtime already has its own stand-alone streaming service and also has a partnership with Hulu. I also think Showtime and CBS are trying to appeal to very different demographics.
 
We'll see. I'm not discounting Moonves' comments about how excited those markets are, but I've already seen people talking about pirating it rather than pay for CBSAA. And a lot of shows don't air the same time in all countries -- even when they are streaming. None of us knows what to expect with this, but by the time the show reaches some of those markets the whole series could be available on a torrent.
This is where I feel like CBS is just so dumb.

Is it just me or is it slightly ironic that fans of a show where one bright engineer can turn a tricorder into a warp corp, might have trouble pirating what will be one of hte most pirated shows of its time.

Seriously the netflix model works on the idea that it's just more work to pirate something than it is to get a super convient service with tonnes of content.

These same people are not gonna be buying a service for 72 bucks a year for Star trek and Touched by an angel.
 
I am proud of the fact that Star Trek fans were so determined and so devoted that a network infamous for its single minded devotion to bean-counting couldnt pass up the easy money we'd bring them. :)
 
We'll see. I'm not discounting Moonves' comments about how excited those markets are, but I've already seen people talking about pirating it rather than pay for CBSAA. And a lot of shows don't air the same time in all countries -- even when they are streaming. None of us knows what to expect with this, but by the time the show reaches some of those markets the whole series could be available on a torrent.
This is where I feel like CBS is just so dumb.

Is it just me or is it slightly ironic that fans of a show where one bright engineer can turn a tricorder into a warp corp, might have trouble pirating what will be one of hte most pirated shows of its time.

Seriously the netflix model works on the idea that it's just more work to pirate something than it is to get a super convient service with tonnes of content.

These same people are not gonna be buying a service for 72 bucks a year for Star trek and Touched by an angel.

I hope they have trouble pirating it. Piracy is becoming a major problem.

All Access is starting to sound more appealing. Better than the old days of hoping that a streaming service wouldn't fail in the middle of a show.

I enjoy many of CBS shows, especially past ones (JAG!), so its worth it to me. I think that many others might feel the same.
 
I hope they have trouble pirating it. Piracy is becoming a major problem.
Becoming? It's actually on a relative decline, in large part thanks to the competitiveness of netflix.

Regardless of whether you or I like it, it's not going anywhere.

The harder people go to stomp it out, the more people are antagonized into piracy.

The given mantra, is that people can only afford so much content, after they reach that point they will steal it.

The point is where is this fixed amount of money spent?

Is it at the movie theatre, the book store, or through a pay for service, people will consume the content.
 
I hope they have trouble pirating it. Piracy is becoming a major problem.
Becoming? It's actually on a relative decline, in large part thanks to the competitiveness of netflix.

Given the number of torrent, file sharing sites, and the like, I would be curious to see how it is declining :confused:

i never said I could make it go away. I find it frustrating and irritating at the process, and am aware of the reasons. I don't have to like, and I don't.
 
It's fine. It's 6 bucks. That's not so bad. You can watch other shows on there, and they might be adding more steaming only content in future, including other shows. I don't know what their plans are for this service. Obviously it would be more appetizing to have it be like Netflix of Hulu and have more than just the shows from the CBS archive. But still, it's not too bad.

$1.25 per episode per month if they release one episode per week, and less than that if it's a season long dump. Then, you'd get 10-13 episodes for $6, then cancel your subscription once you binge watch the season.

Cancel only after you record the stream to your hard drive.
 
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