CBS Launches Subscription Streaming Service Including Every Episode Of Star Trek

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Today CBS launched a new subscription service which delivers live TV, full seasons of current programming and full seasons  of "CBS Classics," including all five live-action Star Trek TV series. More details below.

CBS All Access Delivers Current and Classic CBS Content – Including Star Trek

Today CBS announced launched "CBS All Access" digital subscription service which delivers current primetime shows, plus daytime and late night CBS programming, live TV (in 14 of the largest TV markets), and thousands of episodes of "CBS Classics."


All Access promo vid

Included in the "classics" library is every live-action episode of Star Trek from all five TV series: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise. The TOS, Enterprise and TNG content is available in HD.  

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Star Trek: TNG via CBS All Access on the web

The service costs $5.99 each month, which is a little cheaper than Hulu Plus ($7.99), Amazon Prime ($8.25) and Netflix ($7.99), all of which also feature the Star Trek TV library. In addition, all ‘classic’ CBS content (including Star Trek) is available ad-free. You can access CBS All Access on the web or via the CBS app available for Apple, Android, Amazon, Windows and Blackberry devices.

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Star Trek shows available on CBS app for phone

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Star Trek Enterprise on CBS tablet app (landscape)

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Star Trek TOS on CBS tablet app (portrait)

To find out more or to sign up, visit  cbs.com/all-access.

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Its going to be nice to catch up on some missed episodes

:)

Why does their graphic for ST: ENT have the 1701 refit on it?

Any chance that the stats on viewership on this service might be made public?

I doubt they’ll do good with it. My subscription to amazon prime gets me every episode and movie of Star Trek. That on top of my netflix account and other site like the CW offer their shows for free, why would I pay for CBS services?

4. Snugglepuff – October 16, 2014

Agreed. This strikes me as Too Little, Too Late. I actually already get Amazon Prime and Netflix. Why would I possibly want this? Guess they think there’s a market for it.

And I suppose it’s only available in the US ?

VPN is my friend !

Netflix is available in France since one month : nothing about Star Trek (except Trek 2009) …

Already have Amazon Prime and Trek is already on there, so, lol.

What about TAS, darn it? All SIX Star Trek series…!

…VERY INTERESTING ;-)

nice to see they are in HD! =D

streaming is the future!

So CBS launches with Star Trek as one of their flagship programming choices, no doubt on the heels of the franchise’s hugely successful run on Netflix and Amazon.

Maybe now they’ll see the light and realize that it might be profitable to make a new show?

Doesn’t this probably mean they will not re-up their contracts when the time comes with Amazon/Netflix to run Star Trek content?

Maybe we should start referring to Star Trek as Bessie, because CBS sure is good at milking this particular cow!

If this service gains any kind of traction(and there’s reason to think it will), there’ s a chance that CBS will not renew it’s deals with Netflix and Amazon and make it’s content exclusive.

Considering the thousands of titles to be had on Netflix for $7.99, the 5.99 price tag on CBS seems a tad bit disproportionate .

It would work if CBS put original content on the site like maybe a Enterprise 5th season or mini-series or new Trek stories in general, maybe revisit some of the characters from past shows. If not a full series maybe mini episode like Battlestar Galactica Blood and Chrome did it on line.

How many times are Paramount and/or CBS going to try using Trek to launch a new venture? (And then abandon it like an empty tuna can…)

It’s highly probable that in the near future, the CBS streaming service will be the exclusive home of all of the Trek series.

I can’t imagine CBS doing this and yet allowing the competition to stream (and make money) off its shows.

How much you wanna bet that CBS has split the cost of building the sets in Vancouver with Paramount, only to have the long term vision of exclusively streaming a brand new Star Trek series come September 2016.

Vancouver has long been a popular (and cost effective) location for US TV shows to work.

Just like House of Cards pulled millions of paying customers to Netflix, CBS is hoping Trek will do the same for them!

#18

Except Paramount and CBS are in a bitter feud right now. They’re not co-operating on anything at the moment.

CBS isn’t about to line the pockets of Paramount by entering into a partnership. CBS has allowed Paramount to make movies, but that’s as far as it goes. In the end, CBS makes much more money off of all the tv series it owns than Paramount does on the movies.

Being the technong that I am, do you need to be online, have access to the internet in order to see these shows?

What I like about DVDs (and no doubt, blu-rays, when I manage to get a player) is that all I need are the disc, the player, TV screen and power connection. This means that I can take these three bits of equipment, with their connection cables, up to a bach with power and watch my favourite movies and TV series on DVD in the middle of (virtually) nowhere.

This is what I hope to do come the summer…got all of TOS on DVD now, so I am all set – YAY!

#19 – I thought so and it sucks big time. These studios seem to be without shame or common sense. Such a disgrace!

CBS All Access is most likely restricted to the U.S.

This is interesting…a new TREK series on this CBS site would make me (force me) to spend the money to watch it…but the family would make me keep Netflix and Amazon, so I would be spending more. Let see if it happens…until then, I already have “all” Trek at my fingertips.

ummm why is the TMP enterprise 1701 being used as a promo shot for Star Trek Enterprise? that’s abit misleading lol

# 24. Kev – October 17, 2014

” ummm why is the TMP enterprise 1701 being used as a promo shot for Star Trek Enterprise?” — Kev

Surely you’ve heard “Never judge a book by its cover.”? That’s because publishers try to put the prettiest pictures on their covers to give their print products good vibes to the consumers.

If you’re CBS and you’ve negotiated merchandizing rights to the most beautiful starship ever, then that’s the pretty picture you put on every product you put out that you believe needs a good vibe to move it on the retail shelves.

Expect the Star Trek library to be pulled from those other services once their license runs out. Package this with new ST content and I would drop netflix like a bad habit.

First, CBS is not launching with Star Trek as a flagship series. The launch page doesn’t mention Star Trek, only the list of all the shows does, and Star Trek is buried where you would expect it to be under S. The only people touting Star Trek are the sci fi sites(including this one) who know what their viewers care about.

Second, CBS is not launching this to license old shows. It’s selling this to provide cord cutters a way to watch live CBS and current shows after they air. but in order to sweeten the offering, they’re including all the library material.

If you have no interest in watching live CBS and are happy with what Netlfix/Amazon offers then stick with that. But when a new Star Trek show airs on CBS and you don’t subscribe to cable, this will be your only way to watch it.

#27. Avi – October 19, 2014

“Second, CBS is not launching this to license old shows”

Don’t know about that. Seems they are wasting a lot of ink promoting something they aren’t interested in this press release which they released to all the news outlets:

http://investors.cbscorporation.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=99462&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1978514

“More than 5,000 episodes of CBS Classics, including every episode of STAR TREK…” — CBS

Uhm…wait a minute.

Can’t you ALREADY watch all of the Star Trek episodes online free at CBS?

I mean, I’ve done that before. You can go online, pick any of the episodes from the library, and watch them free of charge. Are they cancelling the free version, or are they just adding perks like HD? This doesn’t really look all that appealing, unless you just really want to watch the libraries of their modern shows. I suppose if you just got into Big Bang Theory, and want to watch some of the old ones, this is great. Otherwise, meh. Just buy an antenna.

I’ll stick to my DVD’s thank you.

The headline to this article is wrong. The animated series is not included.

Some background on Les from November 30, 2012 WSJ reporting that sheds light on his thinking:

http://kflan1.tumblr.com/post/36901880860/wireless-is-useless-if-youre-hitless-leslie

”In 2000, CBS was acquired by Sumner Redstone’s Viacom Inc. Two years later, the CBS network displaced NBC as No. 1 in total viewers, and Mr. Moonves was riding high. Soon after, he was promoted to be co-chief operating officer of Viacom, along with MTV chieftain Tom Freston.

When Mr. Redstone split Viacom and CBS at the end of 2005, Mr. Moonves became head of the newly public CBS, and Mr. Freston took over Viacom as CEO. Later, Mr. Freston was forced out, to be succeeded by Philippe Dauman, a longtime lawyer close to Mr. Redstone.

Mr. Moonves is by most accounts fiercely competitive. At an ad sales presentation once, he pounded a boxing bag plastered with the face of former NBC head Jeff Zucker.

“If you are in Les’s family, there is no safer or happier place to be,” says Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation ho plays a semimonthly poker game with Mr. Moonves and other industry heavyweights. “If you’re not in his family, you don’t exist.”

That rivalry extended to the newly arrived Mr. Dauman. The pair, who are civil in public, soon resorted to the corporate equivalent of a knife fight, something Mr. Redstone says he encouraged. Mr. Moonves launched CBS Films to go up against Viacom’s Paramount Pictures. After Mr. Dauman and Mr. Moonves butted heads over the price at which Showtime would pay to run movies from the Paramount stable, Mr. Dauman in turn launched his own venture, a Showtime competitor called Epix.

“That’s the way it should be,” said Mr. Redstone in an interview. “You can’t win unless you’re competitive.”

The CEO has also been helped by the Paramount Pictures’ television library, which he shrewdly grabbed control of before the split in 2005. By licensing off its rich trove of old shows like “I Love Lucy” and “Star Trek” to online outlets such as Netflix, he has pulled in hundreds of millions in revenue. Earlier this month he said CBS would consider licensing newer shows as well.

Recently, Mr. Moonves declared such digital deals vital to the future, as Web companies like Amazon.com and Google multiply and buy content. Not only do they provide an injection of cash, they give CBS a hedge against any migration to online viewing.

“We still think the majority of the people are going to watch it on the network, but if not, they’ll see it later on in syndication,” including online, he said.

Mr. Moonves has talked about buying deeper into cable, but he is also betting that his revenues will be helped along by the rise of retransmission fees—money paid to broadcast networks by cable and satellite operators. These fees didn’t exist until recently, but by 2017 Mr. Moonves expects the fees to grow for CBS to about $1 billion a year.

Digital licensing deals, while profitable, come with risk. If, for example, the network gives online outlets a wider array of programs, some viewers might be enticed to cancel their cable TV subscriptions.” — CHRISTOPHER S. STEWART @ The Wall Street Journal

> Why does their graphic for ST: ENT have the 1701 refit on it?

Because the people that run CBS are idiots. If they weren’t, they would realize that $6/month for content from a single provider is highly over priced.