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

[garoo1980]

I signed up for CBS All Access a few weeks ago so I can lend a hand here. It's ok. We got it so we could keep up with Amazing Race and watch Supergirl now that it's on. I'm not sure I'll keep it, but it works fine. It has a sizable back catalog of stuff.

The new stuff is obviously only CBS, as they don't play with Hulu. So yeah, 2.5 Men and Big Bang are on there. But also a huge chunk of classic Paramount stuff is. All the Star Trek series for example (although they're on Netflix and Hulu too) are there.

Connection wise it works fine. It's probably buggier than Netflix but better than Hulu. For $6/month it's ok. That's a coffee nowadays. If I pay for Netflix and Hulu and CBS and even HBO I'm only at $45/month which is a lot better than my cable bill used to be.

Last point is that for almost every show you can watch the entire catalog. Presumably for this new ST series that will be the case. So whether they release them once/week or all in one batch you would be able to sign up for a free week and watch them. Or pay $6 and take a month.

It's not much different to what Paramount did with UPN and Voyager. Hell they almost started UPN 10 years earlier and wanted to use TNG for that. It's an old game. They know ST is the biggest show they have and they're leveraging it

 

[thumbtack]

Last month:

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

Now:

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

 

[BillJ]

Last month:

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

Now:

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

There does seem to be a disconnect there.

 

[Tim Thomason]

HBO has movies and other good original shows. Regardless of the price at this point all we know about this service is Star Trek and Two and a Half Men reruns which isn't anywhere close to what HBO offers.

What exactly did you expect to know 24 hours into this new venture that doesn't launch for another 14 months?

HBO Now also costs $15/month compared to CBS' $6/month.

Everything has to start somewhere. HBO wasn't birthed as the industry leader.

I never said I was completely opposed to it. I'm not going to subscribe to this service any time soon but if by 2017 CBS makes it worth it I'll consider it.

I do subscribe to HBO Now because there is enough content for me to justify it. I also subscribe to Hulu which is $8 a month and has shows from several networks, original content, and library of movies. At this point the only thing I know I would watch on CBS All Access is the new Star Trek and I've never subscribed to a whole streaming service for just one show.

Well, CBS All-Access currently has a large archive of CBS-owned shows (Mission: Impossible, all the live-action Star Trek series, Jericho, various other shows and soaps and whatnot). They specify 7,500 episodes, which is almost certainly to be larger at the end of next year. The next Star Trek might not be the only original series it releases on its platform.

And while there aren't any movies right now, CBS does own a minor film studio, and of course, the premium channel Showtime. I imagine they could build a fairly large library of movies to entice subscribers. Perhaps even more than just all the Jesse Stone movies.

 

[Karzak]

Last month:

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

Now:

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

Trekkies: Ugly bags of mostly contradictions.

 

[Campe]

Last month:

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

Now:

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

Tehe.

 

[Pondslider]

What exactly did you expect to know 24 hours into this new venture that doesn't launch for another 14 months?

HBO Now also costs $15/month compared to CBS' $6/month.

Everything has to start somewhere. HBO wasn't birthed as the industry leader.

I never said I was completely opposed to it. I'm not going to subscribe to this service any time soon but if by 2017 CBS makes it worth it I'll consider it.

I do subscribe to HBO Now because there is enough content for me to justify it. I also subscribe to Hulu which is $8 a month and has shows from several networks, original content, and library of movies. At this point the only thing I know I would watch on CBS All Access is the new Star Trek and I've never subscribed to a whole streaming service for just one show.

Well, CBS All-Access currently has a large archive of CBS-owned shows (Mission: Impossible, all the live-action Star Trek series, Jericho, various other shows and soaps and whatnot). They specify 7,500 episodes, which is almost certainly to be larger at the end of next year. The next Star Trek might not be the only original series it releases on its platform.

And while there aren't any movies right now, CBS does own a minor film studio, and of course, the premium channel Showtime. I imagine they could build a fairly large library of movies to entice subscribers. Perhaps even more than just all the Jesse Stone movies.

A lot of those old shows, at least the Star Trek series, are already available on other streaming services. It's certainly possible by 2017 they are planning on pulling the rights for everything and keeping it all in-house. We'll see. CBS and Showtime are so vastly different and with Showtime already having its own stand-alone streaming service I can't imagine there will be any crossover there.

 

[Ryan8bit]

I would definitely pay $6 for 4 episodes of a show I'm interested in, especially if commercials are kept to a minimum.

I almost wonder if $6 is enough though. Let's say a minimum of the core fanbase, like the kind who hung out through all of Enterprise, will be the only paying customers. You probably have what, like 1 million households? That would be $6 million for four episodes (assuming a weekly release). Even Enterprise couldn't get by on that kind of budget. Perhaps they would be operating with overseas numbers in mind, people who will keep the service, or they are hoping for a hell of a lot more than 1 million subscribers.

 

[Squiggy]

Fans of other shows will also be buying this service - but not all of the money (and probably just a small fraction) would go to Trek.

 

[Campe]

Also, I believe I read CBSAA has commercials as well. Plus, licensing to other countries and eventual streaming to other services.

 

[Pondslider]

I would definitely pay $6 for 4 episodes of a show I'm interested in, especially if commercials are kept to a minimum.

I almost wonder if $6 is enough though. Let's say a minimum of the core fanbase, like the kind who hung out through all of Enterprise, will be the only paying customers. You probably have what, like 1 million households? That would be $6 million for four episodes (assuming a weekly release). Even Enterprise couldn't get by on that kind of budget. Perhaps they would be operating with overseas numbers in mind, people who will keep the service, or they are hoping for a hell of a lot more than 1 million subscribers.

Budget, writing, and actors are the biggest concerns with this. I don't expect this to get Game of Thrones money and cost $6 million an episode, but if they want it to be successful they really need to commit a decent budget. A show like The Walking Dead costs about $3 million an episode for 13 episodes. Daredevil cost about $3.5 million for the same number of episodes. I would much rather it follow that kind of format than stick with the 22-24 episode format of the past series.

 

[Squiggy]

I would definitely pay $6 for 4 episodes of a show I'm interested in, especially if commercials are kept to a minimum.

I almost wonder if $6 is enough though. Let's say a minimum of the core fanbase, like the kind who hung out through all of Enterprise, will be the only paying customers. You probably have what, like 1 million households? That would be $6 million for four episodes (assuming a weekly release). Even Enterprise couldn't get by on that kind of budget. Perhaps they would be operating with overseas numbers in mind, people who will keep the service, or they are hoping for a hell of a lot more than 1 million subscribers.

Budget, writing, and actors are the biggest concerns with this. I don't expect this to get Game of Thrones money and cost $6 million an episode, but if they want it to be successful they really need to commit a decent budget. A show like The Walking Dead costs about $3 million an episode for 13 episodes. Daredevil cost about $3.5 million for the same number of episodes. I would much rather it follow that kind of format than stick with the 22-24 episode format of the past series.

That seems to be the model these days.

 

[Tarek71]

My understanding is that CBS All Access currently has less than a million subscribers. Even if Star Trek brought only 1-2 million subscribers that would double-triple what they have now. I have no idea what they are projecting or hoping that Trek will bring them in terms of viewers or what number makes it worthwhile fornthem, but if All Access really has so few subscribers currently, I can see how they might be confidant that a show with an ardent fan base in the millions is just what they need to boost numbers.

 

[Ryan8bit]

I imagine they're trying to lure Star Trek fans in to help grow their service, and they want to keep them. Sure, a lot of them will bail after the show is done, but the idea would be to entice them to stay and watch their other shows.

Also, I believe I read CBSAA has commercials as well. Plus, licensing to other countries and eventual streaming to other services.

See, that's what gets me. If I pay money to see it, I really shouldn't have to watch any commercials. At least for retail products anyways... I wouldn't mind if the only ads were for their other shows and they were brief. I would gladly pay a premium service fee, say twice as much, if I didn't have to watch any commercials.

 

[Squiggy]

If I pay money to see it, I really shouldn't have to watch any commercials.

You do on cable.

 

[Mudd]

The Forbes article is one opinion, and apparently that of a moron.

Because of the name "Forbes," lots of people seem to think that the people who blog about entertainment, et al for that site are financial or industry experts. Most of them are not.

The fact that this series is going to be done for a subscription service, and produced by someone with a fifteen year track record of successful television work as well as a number of successful movies, is the best hope that they'll do something refreshing and maybe a little bit sophisticated with the show.

That would be nice. Leave the "twenty years after the Dominion War, when the Romulans have allied themselves with the Diddly-Bumpians" stuff for fanfic.

 

[Campe]

Aw, but I love the Diddly-Bumpians! They're my favorite offshoot of the Bumpians!

 

[Mudd]

JJ fucked 'em up in the movies - just because it's an alternate universe doesn't mean that the Diddlys are suddenly taller than the Bumpians. That's just lazy writing.

 

[Campe]

Fuckin' JJ.

 

[Ryan8bit]

If I pay money to see it, I really shouldn't have to watch any commercials.

You do on cable.

I guess I'm more referring to streaming services. I have Netflix and HBO streaming services, and the most you'll get on those is ads for their other shows, which I think is fair and useful. It's a primary benefit of that medium. Even with movies (unless you show up really early for the retail commercials), you'll watch previews for other movies, which is usually of interest to moviegoers.

Cable in its current state cannot last. There will be more and more shifts to people paying for the streaming content they actually want, not for a package of hundreds of channels that they only watch a few of. And if given a choice, I think many would pay to not have commercials. So yeah, that dodo makes you watch commercials, but that's not really the best comparison.