But they are going to make money, lots of it. The international distribution deal with Netflix has already paid for the series. So they have the opportunity to enter the streaming realm with a known property and another company mostly paying for it.
I'd say the way CBS is using one of their properties to enter the streaming world is damned near genius and there is little risk for them. Beyond pissing off a few folks who demand things be the way they've always been.
It is leaving the American market derelict in the near future based on a hare brained idea that somehow CBS All Access is a viable sole medium for the show. Ardent fans may pay for it, but not all of them will. And certainly this does nothing to break the series in for a prospective audience on the whole. And that is not good for business. The very idea of capitalism is that markets are to be exploited. With this, you are limiting your revenue stream from the show, and the related revenue streams from the media franchise as a whole. I could see this as long term posturing to put them into a better bargaining position for licensing and distribution rights to Netflix, syndication, or whatever other mediums may be at play. It would be a poor move from an audience perspective, but it has the potential to be a sound business decision: sacrifice a season to be in a better position for the future of the show as a revenue source; broaden the show and revenue through the threat of keeping it on your sole propriety medium if Netflix or whoever does not like your terms. It would be darn near brilliant. However, that does not appear to be their thinking on it.
It's good that you're interested in the supposed parallels, but they're really not.
It is a network assuming one Star Trek show will be the flagship show, and the engine that drives all related success for the network.
It probably will.
There was no point at which Netflix was supposed to work, until it did.
I cannot agree. There is a key difference. Netflix is multiple shows and movies from a wide and varied plethora of sources. It offers the whole of visual media pinpointed based on viewer habits. And it may not have everything, but it has a lot, and some shows and films come and go, and there is always new content. That is why it works. Netflix is not one channel. Netflix is television. CBS All Access is one channel, only their content, and not only that, it is paying for it to watch one show. Not enough people are going to do that. I'm not paying $10 a month because I could watch "Blue Bloods" too, which incidentally I can also watch on far better sources like my cable's on-demand service or Netflix. People do not pay for Showtime only to watch "Ash vs. Evil Dead"; they pay for it because of a number of shows and premium content, and it generally comes as a package with other premium content providers like HBO, or with multiple channels of Showtime. One show may create an initial interest, but it is all the content related to that show that reels them in. "I could watch Evil Dead, but I also get all these movie channels and I'm interested in these other shows". CBS is not Showtime. There is nothing here to offer incentive or sweeten the pot for the consumer. That is not going to work. If not a bluff to better position the company, it is very shortsighted.
I will watch Discovery as soon as I can do so for free.
i.e. within 24 hours of it being streamed on the infranet.
Which is the other problem. And which is why accessibility is important. If you put it behind a pay wall, which it is so unpalatable to get through, people will simply circumvent the wall. And that means no revenue for the company. People will pay for this on Netflix, because they have it already or they have other things of interest in or on Netflix. People would even buy the Blu-Ray/DVD of a season -- although I get the feeling they will charge some overpriced rate if/when it is released on physical media, which goes along with the problem of inaccessibility. If you put something in front of someone and they want it, and say "pay me $5 for all of it", people will just do it. But if you limit accessibility, people will just say screw it and get it for free through illegal means and avoid all the hassle, and avoid paying you for it too. That is the nature of the beast. The "underground economy", or the black market as non-economists call it, is an actual area considered in economics. It exists, and it needs to be taken into consideration as a factor.
In blunt economic and business terms, if CBS were a person sitting right here in front of me, I would tell them to stop living in a fantasy world of what you would like. Stop believing in the company slogan that you are the best and everyone loves your network that someone gives at the annual picnic. This is the real world. Accept the cold, hard reality. There are things you can do and try. It is alright to look ahead to the future, and to even take risks. But it needs to be underlined by understanding what works and is viable and what is hot air. This is all make believe and self assurance. This is not going to work in the American market or any market. There is not going to be CBS All Access in every home. You are not the next Netflix. You are not HBO. In the digital streaming age, you are a hold out on a fading medium, and you are a content provider to distributors of streaming media. You are not Netflix. You sell shows to Netflix.
!
