Roger Fingas
CBS on Wednesday announced a new tier for its All Access streaming service, allowing people to watch TV shows without commercial interruptions — in most cases.
The new option is $9.99 per month versus the standard, $5.99 "Limited Commercials" plan. That makes it a dollar more expensive than Netflix's standard tier, but $2 less than Hulu's ad-free option. Hulu offers content from a wider variety of sources — including movies — and none of Netflix's tiers have advertising.
CBS warned that Commercial-Free subscribers will continue to see ads when watching live streams from local affiliates, and even in "select on-demand shows." Hulu likewise inserts ads into a few higher-profile shows despite people paying to remove them.
CBS All Access is available on a variety of platforms, including iOS, Android, Apple TV, Roku, Xbox, Chromecast, and Amazon Fire TV. Notably CBS charges extra for in-app subscriptions on Apple platforms, presumably to compensate for the latter's 30 percent revenue cut — subscribing on the Web offers regular pricing.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
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Wesley Hilliard
14 Comments
Nothing is ad-free forever. As soon as it gains traction, ads will follow. I am old enough to remember the advent of FM radio. Why go out and buy a new set that got FM? No commercials like AM. Also, early FM had mostly "serious" music: classical and jazz. But within a few years, commercials crept in. Then there was UHF TV. Why get a new TV set that had a UHF tuner? Right, no commercials. Today there are hundreds of UHF channels and all have commercials. (Yeah, I know, UHF and VHF are hardly even broadcast anymore--everything is by wire.) Which brings me to my last example: cable. Why pay for cable when broadcast is free? You guessed it. Today, all cable channels have commercials, even the ones you pay extra for. Don't get me started on Sirius XM.
with the new Apple TV I've tried many of the network TV channel apps....the experience is maddening -- many 2-3 minute commercial breaks, which apparently they can't sell ads for and so cram them with THE SAME ADS over and over. often repeating immediately!! it's aggravating and insulting. if they can't sell ad slots to multiple advertisers, then they need to reduce the breaks in frequency and length. no F'ing way am I going to submit my brain to this repetitive nonsense.
I wonder how many people actually buy CBS content for $6 (or 10) when HBO or Showtime only costs 10 or 15? Do they really think they are worth that much?
CBS is not Hulu. So, one strategy works for Hulu not necessarily works for CBS. In fact, CBS is like ABC/NBC national channels over the air free so should make it ADs based but free.
How many shows are available on CBS All Access?
And how does that compare to something like Netflix... at the same price?