CBS (Paramount+) Streaming and on-Air

lol how is streaming more expensive again when you can get basically every major soccer streaming app for under $10 a month, you can't get cable for anything less than $55 a month? Even if you factor in ZERO discounts, you are looking at what $45-50 a month for Season Pass/Peacock/P+/ESPN+? Still less than cable.

I used to have comcast, argued with them every year to get my promo renewed, and I paid effectively about $70 for their cable package. If I did not argue to get that promo renewed every year, the same cable package would have been $130 (seriously). Compare to the 4 major streaming apps, where I would pay $45 dollars full freight for all four, or $5.40 with discounts.

The cost is an order of magnitude in difference. This is why all the streaming apps lose money while companies are desperate for cable to continue - cable rips off the consumer and streaming doesn't. Maybe this is why so many people leave cable. I'm 32 and the only person I know with cable is my parents. Most friends seem to watch Netflix, or Disney+ for those with kids, and its only sports fans that have something like cable through YTTV or Sling to watch ESPN.

Maybe I'm the odd one out in the grand scheme of things, but I love it. It is objectively no where near as expensive as cable though - not even in the same ballpark.

 

There's isn't. It's on Paramount+ in English, and on Unimás, TUDN and Vix+ in Spanish.

 

https://www.howtogeek.com/874197/free-paramount-for-1-year-is-coming-to-t-mobile-customers/

T-Mobile is getting the $5/mo version of Paramount+.

 

Probably 10 years from now, when we are past this transition and personal adjustment phase of going from cable/satellite to streaming, it will have been all worth the pain. But I guess the reason some people are frustrated at the moment is because you almost need both (i.e. cable and streaming apps).

I mean, streaming is great (and cheap) if you watch everything live. But if you don't, traditional TV is way superior. You can skip through commercials, start watching before the match even ends, change channels in under 30 seconds, etc. And then we have arrangements like EPL coverage where not all the matches are covered on one streaming service. Games covered on USA network and the NBC sports app don't become available on Peacock until 24 hours after the match ends.

Also, picture quality (especially for sports viewing) is still noticeably better with cable/satellite.

 

Another thing I like doing is being able to preview a different channel. Say there's a show on. I can flip to something else during a commercial and then keep an eye on those commercials while I'm watching a second channel.

 

If anyone is on the fence about Paramount+, you might as well do it quick and get a free month of Showtime.

https://www.cnet.com/deals/this-cou...ree-month-of-paramount-plus-and-showtime-now/

Apparently it's new subscribers only and expires tonight.

 

I'll defer to you on the EPL replays of NBC/USA games taking a day to show up but otherwise I can't agree that streaming is inferior for watching replays than cable. I can watch replays for up to 30 days of every La Liga and Bundesliga match shortly after the game's end without having to worry about a) remembering to schedule a recording and b) wondering if there's enough space on my DVR, and the same thing applies to all Serie A matches for beyond 30 days. Also many if not most of these games weren't even available to DVR as the linear cable channels only carried select matches. And the same thing applies to the EPL except for the 24-hour delay on the USA/NBC matches.

Also ESPN+ allows you to start from the beginning so you can pick up a live match at any point and you can do the same thing with Peacock and Paramount as long as you just don't look at the scorebug at the top of the screen when you select the game, pause it and just rewind to the beginning.

Finally when it comes to switching between games quickly on streaming my solution is to use two streaming devices hooked to the TV. I have a Fire Stick and a Roku and my TV's input menu allows me to flip between them in 2-3 seconds - in fact, if I hit a button on my Roku remote it automatically switches the input.

 

Since streaming, our access has expanded dramatically beyond what was ever available on cable. Think about it, apps like ESPN+ and Paramount+ show EVERY GAME from the leagues they cover. With cable, you got one game a window (there was only one channel). If you wanted to watch a smaller team or game, they were NEVER shown. You say that now people need both cable and streaming, but they don't really. Everything on streaming is basically stuff that NEVER would have been on cable anyway. We can watch everything now and are so used to it we forgot that even 10 years ago we were happy for a few games on TV each week, and now every single game is available.

Quality is much higher on streaming, not lower. Look at the EPL for example, peacock is much better resolution now than USA. Peacock is full 60 fps, USA is not. Compare MLS on ESPN quality v. Apple this year. If you want 4K, the only real option is to stream. Want away team broadcast, home team radio announcers, custom stats on the screen...all really only possible to do well with streaming and not a cable box from 1990.

I agree its not perfect, but miles better than able already and its still quickly improving as the apps are updated and more content moves to streaming.

 

This reminds me that the other day my cat walked across my remote and kicked me out of my streaming app. Took a good 30-45 seconds to get it back, and even after that, the stream doesn't pick up where I left off.

Also, maybe its just me, but the advantages of watching on Demand streaming versus cable seem pretty small. For e.g., DVR's can save hundreds and hundreds of hours of TV nowadays. DVR space was more of an issue 10 years ago.

Compare that to some of the disadvantages of watching a stream on Demand:
- having the result spoiled as you browse to find the replay,
- waiting hours for the replay to upload,
- knowing the duration of the stream, which tells you if the game goes to extra time or not
- not being able to stop the stream and pick up where you left off.
- different interface, different buttons required to FF'd, Play and RW'd depending on app.

These might not be true for all apps, but certainly applies to many of them.

 

Yea, this is just poor app design. It's actually pretty frustrating how consistently poor most of the major streaming apps are in terms of features and usability. But these are all solvable issues, its just coding a better app. If you have sampled some of the less legitimate ways to stream sports games, you will find many of these bootleggers have their own apps with significantly more features than P+ or Peacock. I'm not sure how that can be the case, but it is. YoutubeTV has been talking about adding a multiview feature (watch multiple channels at once) for over 18 months now and some of these less legitimate streamers have that feature implemented in their app in a week or two.

Unfortunately, like with cable, streamers think they have "exclusive" rights to the broadcast and so make basically no effort to do anything else well because they figure if you want to see the game you have to watch with them - no mater how bad the app is, no matter how expensive, no matter how poorly presented. But I think people have reached a limit on that: people are tuning out or pirating. Eventually the market reality will hit home - they need games to be easily accessible at a reasonable price or long term TikTok and Youtube will put them out of business.

I'm very glad MLS came to this realization early. I think they were forced to do so in part because the soccer leagues they compete with for viewers are all easily accessible for a reasonable price on a streaming app.

 

Spoilers are non-existent on some apps and easy to avoid on others. Paramount doesn't have them, ESPN allows you to turn scores off, and Peacock sometimes will have "tiles" up on their sports page with highlights/news that might have spoilers but if you know where not to look they're easily avoided (i.e.,just look out of the corner of your eyes until you see the row with "Matchday XX" which just has the games).

Hours for replays to upload? ESPN's are up within 15-20 minutes, Paramount's maybe an hour, and Peacock usually less than that (not counting the USA/NBC games).

Duration of stream? A little more of an issue but not unsolvable. Paramount will sometimes show them if you read the whole description on the replay page but you can just not and select as soon as you see the game you want to watch. ESPN shows them in their mobile apps (but not Roku/Fire TV apps) but only on the soccer or league page - in the mobile app just first go to the calendar in the upper right and select the game from a list from the day with no lengths shown. Peacock only shows EPL so no extra time involved with them. And during the matches on ESPN & Paramount you can close your eyes briefly when FFing so as not to see the progress bar at the bottom.

Stop and pick up where you left off? All three of them offer that. ESPN and Peacock have a "continue watching" on their front page and Paramount remembers where you were, you just have to go back to the list (for some reason their "continue watching" on the top of the screen is the most recent game or show for the league).

Different buttons? Not so much. Peacock changed about a month ago on their EPL replays, now all three of them allow you to advance 10 seconds or so by hitting the right forward button and move back in the same fashion with the left rewind button.

Really the only negative is the steering clear of the game lengths on knockout matches which can be done as I mentioned above but about 10-20% of the time I slip up and see it. In those instances I either jump ahead to extra time or watch the game long enough until it's apparent one team isn't going to catch up in regulation and save some time.

 

The Chelsea-Dortmund match was delayed for 10 minutes. (Per goal.com, the Dortmund bus couldn't turn a corner en route to the stadium.) Paramount+ showed Benfia vs Club Brugge live as scheduled.

CBS killed time by having studio commentary with live images from the stadium.

 

Maybe they're not allowed bonus coverage on the front end.

 

I agree 100% love streaming and will never go back to cable or satellite. I’m 47 and most of my friends don’t watch tv at all or just stream. Like you said my parents too won’t leave cable .

 

CBS just announced "The Golazo Channel" coming soon to Paramount+, CBS Sports and Pluto.

Interestingly, one of the UEFA CL studio hosts referred to it as the first soccer-only channel. Obviously, he forgot about Fox Soccer Channel and GolTV.

https://worldsoccertalk.com/news/cb...l-cbs-golazo-network-20230308-WST-422664.html

 

A delay in Tottenham-AC Milan means those viewers are getting bonus coverage of Bayern Munich vs PSG while Multicast viewers are watching (I'm guessing) the global feed, obviously without sound.

 

Even when you have scores turned "off" (why there is even an option to have it ON is beyond me), there are still tons of spoilers. For e.g. (at the moment) Right next to the "La Liga" icon is an icon that gives away the Madrid - Betis result, the Rayo - Athletic result and tells you the point gap between first and second place in the table. Literally one icon away from where you have to go to watch La Liga replays are all the recent results from La Liga and the league table. lol

One hour after the post-game show ends, I might add. That's 4 hours after the kick-off (in Paramount's case). Not an insignificant amount of wait time if you ask me, especially for a weeknight when there is limited time available.

For me, that's not the issue. Its when I'm in the middle of watching the stream (and my guard is down) that I'll often accidentally notice the progress bar at the bottom of the screen.

 

Believe it or not most folks watch sports apps for LIVE events, scores are on so someone can see whether a game is worth watching (i.e., not already a blowout).

The bottom line is if one puts an effort into avoiding spoilers on the streaming services, they can for the most part. And any inconveniences in this department are dwarfed by the massive increase in availability of matches.

 

Recall I started by saying streaming is great and cheap for watching live stuff, but that DVR is alot better for watching on demand (not really a small factor if living in a place that is 5-6 time zones away from the events you are most interested in).

Agree that overall streaming is great. Just annoying because these many problems listed above are all easy fixes.

 

The Sporting - Arsenal match on Paramount+ appeared to be in SD quality(?). Not sure if that's normal for Europa League(?). (I usually watch on my tablet so SD or HD is not really noticeable, but I put this particular match on the big screen.)

 

I watched it in a pub in london via BT Sport 2 feed. It was also not the best resolution. Lots of digital compression blurriness especially of the large patches of grass. Makes me wonder if the world feed was just poor for all providers??

 

So if you have Paramount + you will automatically get the Golazo Network?

 

Yes, but you don't even need Paramount+ to get it. It is going to be on Pluto TV streaming for free, as well.

https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/ne...nch-of-cbs-sports-golazo-network-on-april-11/