The thing is, everyone other than YouTube TV is losing subscribers now. Even adding in the linear streamers there's less than 50% of the US with any kind of paid live TV option now. If it wasn't for live sports, especially Big 12 sports and Formula 1, I wouldn't have YTTV anymore. Those channel owners are going to have a lot less leverage if things keep dropping, but there's also going to be less incentive to carry anything other than the absolutely essential channels. There's already one group that has publicly talked about approaching Disney about buying ABC from them while Disney tries to figure out how to price an ESPN streaming service that includes their linear channels. I'm honestly looking forward to things breaking all the way down to the only remaining options being antenna for OTA and whatever streaming services I might want at various times.
What if I need Peacock ASAP? I'm thinking about going monthly with both Peacock and Paramount+ and seeing what they roll out then.
I don't get why they use the int'l commentary team for 95% of the CL and EL broadcasts but, like every other US network showing soccer, have this obsession with using at least one commentary team of their own. In this case, its Ray Hudson and that awful Serie A play-by-play guy. This was probably discussed on this forum before, but did we ever find a reason for this approach (obsession)? Isn't it more expensive to do it this way? Do CBS have money to burn, or did they mistakenly sign Hudson to a 50-year contract?
So they can promote other stuff on the network, interact with the studio set, and because "it's just how sports are done in this country". CBS/Paramount does have another announcer they use for the big UCL matches (including the final), a veteran English announcer who's done world feeds but whose name escapes me at the moment, and he's fine but Bonetti and Hudson are an abomination to the ears.
A summary of the last few days: My Paramount+ with Showtime expired last weekend. Today, I bought a ticket for an event via Ticketmaster. It came with a promo code of REDEEM30. I used it for one month Paramount+ with Showtime which I just redeemed. I immediately canceled. I got a "Don't go so soon! Here's two more months on us!" I'm now good until January 6th!
And what the hell is Walmart+, you might ask? Answers here: https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/what-is-walmart-plus/ It's basically their version of Amazon Prime.
Showtime Boxing will be shut down. https://mmapayout.com/2023/10/17/showtime-sports-to-close-at-end-of-2023/
In terms of actual gameplay, this RB Leipzig game might be bonkers. Their opponents (the home team) warmed up on a nearby pitch just to give the away team some more intimidation.
USL coming to CBS starting next year and running through 2027. The USL Championship final will be on CBS all 4 years. 20 games on CBSSN, 75 on CBS Golazo Network. Not sure about the other games. https://www.uslchampionship.com/news_article/show/1290547
I gotta say, the CL extended highlights that CBS puts together are simply awful (I'm assuming they put them together themselves, given the quality). For starters, they're so choppy. They just cut the audio mid-sentence and then jump to the next "highlight". And, yes, I have to put "highlight" in quotes. Sorry, but a guy picking up his first yellow late on in the match is not a highlight unless it was a borderline red or broke up a dangerous counter attack. No need to show yellows for time wasting. Common sense, please! There's also no logical proportion of time that they spend on individual highlights. They will waste a whole minute or 90 seconds to show the long build up plus 3 slow-motion replays of a small scoring chance, but then spend 20 seconds on a brilliant scoring chance. Come on, guys! Its not that difficult.
It does make me laugh sometimes watching the CBS highlights. Some teen in his basement on YouTube could put together more entertaining and meaningful highlight reels than whoever does them at Paramount.
100%! That's been pretty evident for a year or so now. That's the point, it's not a knowledgeable human doing it anymore. It's a cheapo AI-bot.
"cheapo" being the key word there. lol I'm no expert on AI but I thought AI is just to help give humans something to work with. You still have to fix, adjust and give a human touch to whatever AI spits out. Its not a time issue either because TNT Sports (UK) has the highlights ready 30 minutes after the end of the matches and they are obviously better.
https://www.cbsnews.com/essentials/paramount-plus-black-friday-streaming-deal/ Since there's no need to sign up immediately and since I'm apparently getting it for free through Feb 6, I'm going to wait a while until seeing what sort of magic I can pull with their CSRs. If I can't get an extension, well, I guess using my second account wouldn't do any good since it'd be $4*3 with two months of overlap, right?
https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/12/01/apple-tv-may-bundle-paramount-to-cut-subscriber-losses There may be a Paramount+ and AppleTV bundle coming.
There's already a deal with Verizon to get them both as a bundle for $10/mo starting on 12/7. https://thestreamable.com/news/offi...on-sale-for-verizon-myplan-customers-on-dec-7
https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/sh...rand-paramount-plus-with-showtime-1235833222/ So...if I have this right, if you subscribe to the linear Showtime errr... Paramount+ with Showtime channels via a TV provider, you *may* get access to the entire Paramount+ app. I... think?
So Paramount+ updated its app on the Roku and now replays are gone! If you go under Serie A or Champions League or whatever, you get options for "live schedule" and "Highlights" and some other stuff like "best of", but no match replays. Unbelievable.
Yeah they are, and they can still be found where they were on the Fire Stick app. And it turns out they're still on the Roku app as well, but you have to go to the "Sports" tab and scroll down several rows to find "match replays" which include all the competitions they show, unlike before where you could find the replays under each competition's page.