It seems like they may be borrowing a page from HBO Max. Based on what I know now, only the higher tier will include Showtime. What was: Paramount+ with commercials Paramount+ with no commercials for more money Paramount+ with no commercials AND Showtime for even more money. What will be...I think: Paramount+ with commercials Paramount+ with no commercials and Showtime for the same price as the old tier that didn't include Showtime. In today's media environment, it doesn't make sense for companies to run separate apps for different things. Look around and you'll find a Showtime app. In 2023, this app is redundant. I'd expect Disney to clean up their Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+ mess. Indeed, some ESPN+ stuff has begun appearing on Disney+. The problem here is two-fold. 1) Comcast still has a stake in Hulu. Once they sell...and they're expected to... hopefully the wheels start moving. 2) The other issue is the Parents' Television Council. They've begun whining over some stuff appearing on Disney+. In other countries, what's on Hulu (24, American Dad, etc) are in a STAR tab on Disney+. This STAR tab relates to the same STAR that Oliver Tse kept mentioning... something about how ESPN and Fox in Asia were connected. I'm just not in the mood to look it up.
I get the Paramount+ app (with Showtime) now. As part of that app, I get Showtime East and Showtime West. If I type in "boxing" I get several on-demand fights. The most recent was just under three hours and included at least one undercard. And yeah, I wouldn't expect it to have the $79.99 or whatever-expensive-fee-it-is PPVs...just the regular "run of the mill" stuff.
So outside of Paramount Plus no other way to watch AC Milan vs Tottenham today right? Seems backwards from when Fox Sports had it right? Also the same tomorrow with Dortmund vs Chelsea. That is available but the other game is not. Is that progress?
Sorry Bande but these posts drive me nuts sometimes. Paramount+ gives you EVERY Champions League, Europa League & Europa Conference League match for $5 per month! Looking at ANY streaming service as somehow "inferior" to a traditional tv channel is so last century. Yes, subscribing to all the different streamers can become expensive but you make it sound like FoxSports-2 was free on your rabbit-ears. Cable providers shoved FoxSports2 (as well as FoxSports1) on tiers that often cost $20 per month with a bunch channels you NEVER cared for. So yes, the only way to watch AC Milan vs Tottenham was via Paramount+ because CBS is not about to dish out millions of dollars to UEFA and put every match on CBS or CBSSports. I'm an old man by now but even I have to argue that being able to get every European Cup match for as little as $50/year live or on-demand whenever I feel like watching IS progress!! Respect, SA
The Dortmund v Chelsea match is free over the air broadcast on UniMás. You don’t even need cable. The Brugge match is only streaming, but Vix has it in their free tier. As we get further along I would expect most of the matches to be free OTA on Univision
CBS/CBSSN had live games during the knockout round last year too. Next week, I see: Pregame at 2pm on CBS. Postgame at 5pm on CBSSN. Real Madrid at Liverpool on Tuesday. Manchester City at Red Bull Leipzig on Wednesday. Games subject to change, I'm sure.
So annoying how the studio team mocks the Brugges v Benfica match. Especially after spending 20 minutes talking about Milan v Spurs. Its like they haven't watched any football for the past two years. I guess Richards and Carragher must receive instructions to dumb it down for the American audience.
Talk about dumbing it down: I rarely watch the pre post match stuff, but the Valentines Day schtick was uncomfortable and pretty sexist. You could tell Thierry Henry was pretty embarrassed by the whole spectacle. Kate Abdo is a pro and it was painful to watch her go through that stuff.
Not sure if mentioned, but Paramount+ is offering one month free using code "Advance". I assume its just for new customers, but not sure. A month will be enough to get every CL and Europa league match up to the quarterfinals, plus Conference League too (not sure they show every Conf match).
DUMB is the shortest, most perfect word you can use to describe their studio shows. A much longer but comparably apt word is EMBARRASSING.
Update: Both packages of Paramount+ are going up in price. Ad-free is $10, but will be $12. This will include Showtime. If someone had ad-free and paid additional for Showtime, they'll be saving money. With ads is $5, but will be $6. https://www.engadget.com/paramount-...hether-you-get-showtime-or-not-153523879.html
I agree. I was watching and wondering why they went through that whole spectacle? I’m guessing she’s single and the others aren’t? But yeah, pretty unnecessary display. She’s pretty, we get it, but she crushes her job on multiple networks. She deserved better.
Except doesn’t it kind of leave out the casual fan. There is no way that some casual fan will find that game if it is streaming. kind of the same thing with MLS. They are only “televising” 31 games. How many casual fans will be flipping channels and watching MLS games or Champions League games for that manner. If you have to have Paramount Plus for Champions League or Apple TV Plus for MLS the chance of a casual fan finding the game or games is zero. Now I realize that television ratings for Champions League and MLS are dismal. Won’t they be even more dismal in streaming? Or does that even matter? iI used to watch BEIN Sports and see La Liga and Seria A. Now that they are on ESPN + ( along with the Championship) I just don’t see as many games from those leagues anymore. I watch the games that are on USA and that is it. No Peacock. In regards to the Premier League. I assume that the leagues are making more money from these contracts. But are the streaming services? Disney’s streaming services are not making money. Which lends me to believe that Paramount Plus and Peacock aren’t either. Oh well. just how it goes. I used to be able to watch both games on one of the Spanish networks. Even that has stopped. Like I said I just watch less games. Probably like a lot of people.
Ratings don't matter for streaming. Regarding MLS, the casual fan has had almost 30 years to discover the league via channel flipping. If someone hasn't become a fan based off TV by now, it probably won't happen. For CL, the channels can air commercials every 5-7 minutes or whatever during regular shows. During CL games, that's two 30-minute blocks (3:00-3:30 and 4:00-4:30) that are commercial-free. Ratings have to be quite strong for them to air games on regular TV, especially on a regular basis. This is (probably) part of the reason why early MLS games had logos on the screen and the announcers would mention "brought to you by _sponsor name_." They also experimented with that "Side by Side" where they'd air a commercial in split-screen with the game.
I have to be honest and say that I can't relate to "casual fans". For soccer, I consider casual fans those who watch the World Cup every 4 years. I think that if they care about El Clasico in Spain, for example, they are already more than a casual fan. Now in regard to "casual fans" and streaming - a vast majority of people subscribing to Paramount+ and Peacock are subscribing for programming other than soccer. I assume that most of these streaming services list what they offer in the same manner as say, Netflix. You can scroll thru drama, comedy, series, movies, sport. If you can scroll thru the offerings - including sport - it "captures" the casual fan no differently than a fan scrolling thru channels on his cable provider. You could even argue that casual fans with these services are MORE likely to watch soccer because on their cable provider, it would only have LIVE offerings on various channels whereas streaming subscribers, when they hit the "sport section", are likely to see dozens of matches because all the on-demand stuff is listed. This definitely does NOT apply to AppleTV and the MLS as I understand it, MLS requires a separate subscription to regular AppleTV programming so it won't be available while scrolling thru offerings. I guess what I'm saying is that we as soccer fans tend to think of these streaming services as designed for us - soccer fans. In reality, a VAST majority are subscribing for everything EXCEPT soccer. But soccer games are listed there so the chances of a Paramount+ subscriber stumbling upon a UEFA Champions League game actually are far from zero. Please correct me if I'm wrong on how these streaming services list their content. I'm not a subscriber... SA
Someone threw out the number twenty dollars a month. Apple TV Plus for MLS is 15 dollars a month. Paramount Plus 5 dollars a month. ESPN plus is 9.99 a month.. That is more than twenty right. that also doesn’t include Peacock if you want to watch more EPL.
Because unlike cable, many consumers get those services free or heavily discounted. For example, I am paying the following: ATV+: Free through best buy (can churn every 3 months it seems) MLS Season Pass: Free though T-Mobile Paramount +: Free through T-Mobile Peacock: $20 annually purchased late last year when it was discounted. ESPN+: $45 annually purchased last year before price increase ($25 amex credit promo also) Netflix: Free though T-Mobile So that's $65 a year for CL, Seria A, Bundesliga, La Liga, MLS, Brasiliero, Argentine Primera and half the EPL. Or about $5.40 a month, 18 cents a day, for more soccer than I can actually watch. Compare this to Cable, which is at minimum $55 a month on its own, and which gets me half the EPL, whatever international game Fox is showing, the occasional CL match on CBS, and whatever is left on Bein? Even before streaming, Cable was still $60-$160 dollars, and you did not have access to every game in every league like you do now with streaming apps. I agree with whoever said it earlier, you have to be out of your mind as a soccer fan not to love the turn to streaming. We have 100x as many games we can potentially watch, the price is a fraction of cable, and I can watch on my phone at work silently so I can even catch the CL games on a workday. This is the sort of future you could only dream about 25 years ago.
Bingo. No one under the social security eligibility age is sitting around channel flipping. But they are aimlessly browsing through Netflix, Paramount, Peacock and for young guys interested in sports, ESPN+. I've said this for a year or two now but you will catch way more people potentially interested in Soccer by being on ESPN+ home page than you will get being on FS1 as people flip through the cable guide. You are correct the apps (Peacock, Paramount and Hulu at least) will usually show featured shows and live events first, right on the default splash page that everyone opening the app for any reason sees. Apple is heavily promoting the MLS, if you go to the general sports tab in Apple TV (which BTW is the best sort of TV guide for sports on streaming services), a third of the whole page is just an MLS Season Pass promotion. Old people don't get it and still think TV actually reaches people besides them, when it by and large does not. If you want to reach people of working age, you are better off spamming ads on YouTube or paying some popular streamer to push your product. If you want to catch someone's attention, you are better off being on the splash page of a major app than on any TV guide. T-Mobile just gave season pass to its more than 100 million subscribers - there are not even that many cable subscribers in the entire country. Apple is going to send a push notification to half a billion people with an iPhone when the MLS kicks off this year.
Shiiiiiiiiiiit, I'd love to pay $55/mo for U-Verse. My equipment is included with my service (some people pay extra for additional receivers) although I do pay extra for HD channels. I'm not even getting TUDN, although I don't miss it. Outside of a rare preview, I never got ESPN Deportes or Gol TV. BeIN hasn't been on U-Verse in years, although they do have Fox Soccer Plus for an additional $15/mo for some reason....ok, it goes back to Setanta being $15/mo and they never bothered to renegotiate FS+. I can somehow get one of the BeIN channels via an antenna although I don't care enough to bother how to get it. Streaming is more expensive, although there's definitely a game you can play there, as you said. With traditional providers, there *is* a retentions department, although deals obviously vary by provider, location, customer, good mojo and whatever other various factors there are. I'm lucky enough to get HBO Max as part of my internet package although I'm not sure I'd pay for it by itself.