Re: IS CBS All Access the best format to release a new Star Trek serie
I currently subscribe to CBS All Access and have done so for about 6 months now. I thought I would address some of the items mentioned in
dub's post.
I also want to mention that it's funny how much the app has been mentioned in this thread...I think I have used the app about one time since I got the service. Not as many videos are available on the app, making it pretty much useless to me. For example I wanted to watch an episode of The Late Show with Colbert and it wasn't available on the app, had to use my desktop, same with past seasons of classic shows, so I gave up and just use my PC to stream any CBS content.
I'd offer a live stream of the network. Figure out some way to sell commercials during the live stream for some ad revenue (separate from broadcast).
You can live stream the network based on your location to get your local affiliate, and although they don't mention this, with a little tweaking of your browser's location settings you can watch other affiliates as well. It includes all of the same commercials as if you were watching it live.
Have two sections for each new show: one section with the episodes and another section with interviews, behind-the-scenes clips, and the sort of things you'd find on a bluray extras section. But for new shows, I'd also regularly offer new preview clips/interviews between seasons to keep up the hype.
They are doing this, at least for certain shows. I am into Big Brother and CBS All Access offers exclusive content for that, including access to the 24/7 live feeds and special interviews/content. I'm not sure how common it is for other shows. I seem to remember some exclusive Survivor content as well.
Do some entertainment-style interviews of actors/directors/writers or whoever you can get (LIVE whenever possible) to stream following the debut of as many new episodes as possible.
They do this for Big Brother, but that's a bit of a unique situation. I agree it would be interesting to see it for other types of shows as well. For example a "red carpet premiere" type event for a season premiere of a show, where the actors/writers/creators talk about it.
Have a way to subscribe to your favorite shows (of course), but also have a section of "newest clips" specific to your subscription. So, if NCIS: New Orleans was one of my subscriptions, any new episode or interview clip/behind the scenes would show up in that "newest clips" section.
They do have this, it is called My CBS. You go through the whole list of shows, subscribe to the ones you want, and then when you go to the My CBS page you see a section for each of them with the most recent videos listed.
Do a CNN Headline News version of CBS News and roll that into the CBS app as an exclusive.
This would be nice. So far I can watch clips/episodes of CBS This Morning and CBS Evening News.
Offer as many full past series on streaming as the library allows. Start producing/offering interviews/behind-the-scenes clips related to those old shows.
They could add more, but I do feel like they have a substantial list of past shows to watch so far. For example I have access to all of I Love Lucy, Twin Peaks, Medium, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Melrose Place, Taxi, The Twilight Zone, Wings, Perry Mason, The Odd Couple, The Brady Bunch, Cheers, Family Ties, Frasier, etc. There are several others, including all of the Star Treks.
Do the same for any old movies owned by CBS.
They do have a section called Movies and Specials, but from what I can tell it doesn't contain any actual movies. It is mostly things like The Grammy's, The Tony's, Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, etc.
Try to get partnerships with some cable networks/film studios to widen the variety even further.
This would be great!!
Do some interactive sort of things, like games and contests. Have sponsored video/photo contests related to some of the shows and allow people to upload media (viewable after being cleared by CBS) to be judged by viewers with "likes," with giveaway incentives.
You know, I don't doubt something like this could come along. CBS has experimented with stuff like this in the past. Several years ago I remember playing a Survivor game on the CBS website, which actually had a quite interesting and complicated points system in which teams work together to predict events that will occur in the next episode. And at one point (not sure if they still do this) CBS had a points system that would accrue points every time you watched a video, liked their content, or did other actions on their website. It seems like they are at least willing to try new things in this arena.
Offer a free version of the channel that has less offerings, perhaps remains a season behind on new shows, things like that.
They sort of do this already...if you go to their site as a free user, you usually have access to something like the most recent 3-5 episodes of a show. But if I log in to my account I have access to the entire series.
But the see the problem is CBS doesn't have the same variety of content that Netflix has, for example. Maybe if this service had all the Paramount movies, all the Showtime shows and all the CBS shows, it might be competitive. Does CBS all access even have movies? Also how is the CBS library on its own interesting enough to sustain a site like this long term? Do people really want to watch old episodes of Survivor? Something like Netflix has mainstream fare, edgy cable shows, children's programs and movies. CBS needs a lot more then just it's library and a few exclusives to make this work long term.
As I mentioned above it doesn't seem to have any movies. I can say that I'm at least one person who wants to watch old episodes of Survivor.
I originally subscribed to get the Big Brother 24/7 live feeds, but have stuck with it since then to catch up on old seasons of Amazing Race and Survivor. My antenna reception of CBS is also a bit sketchy in my location, so having the live streaming is a great bonus. I stream it directly to my TV using a Chromecast, and it looks really great.
I do think that they should really consider adding movies to the service. At this point I feel it is just about worth it at $6, but I could see a point at which I would catch up on the older shows I am interested in and then cancel. I'm guessing they've thought about this and it's why they are moving into creating their own content for the streaming service.
