CBS All Access Replacement Officially Gets A Release Date
CBS All Access will soon be renamed Paramount Plus. Here's when you can expect the rebranded streaming service to launch.
This article is more than 2 years old
Audiences in 2021 have plenty of options for streaming services, so many that a lot of them are bound to be ignored. One of those that hasn’t picked up much steam with audiences is CBS All Access. But would you pay more attention to a streaming service called Paramount Plus? The company is hoping to hear an emphatic yes, as they’re pulling big moves to rebrand their streaming service with the new name. The new site will launch on March 4th, following an investor “streaming event” on February 24th. The event will give more details on what’s coming.
Why do they think this name change will have a big effect? Because most of us don’t know enough about what CBS All Access is supposed to be. The CBS brand is known as one of the television channels that have been around seemingly since the dawn of the medium. However, not a lot of people know that CBS is ViacomCBS, and that they own Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, MTV, BET, CBS, and Paramount Pictures, the movie studio.
When CBS All Access first launched, the offerings were small, to say the least. Now, audiences are aware that CBS All Access is where they can watch the original content for CBS. But with so many other services available, that isn’t enough of a draw for most consumers. CBS All Acces is also where users can watch The Good Wife, the new Stephen King miniseries The Stand, classic CBS shows, or any of the Star Trek series. Currently, CBS is airing old episodes of Star Trek: Discovery on its regular, non-streaming channel. While that’s good to hopefully get more people watching Discovery, it’s one less reason to subscribe to CBS All Access.
In July 2020, the streaming service added a lot more to their service, but unfortunately, few people noticed. The rebrand from CBS All Access to Paramount Plus is part of a larger effort to make audiences aware of what can be found on the service. So far, we know there will be live news, sports, movies from the Paramount vault, and TV shows from the many channels ViacomCBS owns. However, we don’t yet know what TV shows and movies that will include. Currently, CBS All Access charges $5.99 a month to watch programming with commercials, or $9.99 a month to watch without interruption. There hasn’t been any word on the costs for Paramount Plus.
Will Paramount Plus be able to communicate what their service is to audiences better than CBS All Access managed? This is hard to say, especially since the rebrand can be a touch confusing. There are also a lot of streaming services out there now. It used to be that Netflix and Hulu pretty much had a subscriber covered, but today the market has gotten competitive. Those negatives aside, Paramount Plus does sound like it could have a lot to offer. For example, with audiences loving the old series on like the X-Men animated series on Disney+, there’s a lot of nostalgia for Nickelodeon cartoons that Paramount Plus could tap into. The Paramount movie vault is also deep and includes movies like Titanic, Transformers, Shrek, and Indiana Jones. CBS All Access launched with a small catalog, but maybe Paramount Plus could launch big and make its mark
