MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.
Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1318513
- People who wanted more than pablum would actually pay to watch solid creative work Life was good; except for the fact that inevitably, the shows you wanted to watch were on at the same time as other good shows so you had to make a choice. Fortunately, the Internet emerged and a new streaming service emerged that let you pay-to-store programs you missed to watch later. That streaming was okay but Netflix was tired of mailing you red envelopes and wanted to “give” you a subscription service that BAM! you could watch anytime you wanted on any screen you wanted and … as much as you wanted at one sitting. Viewers liked it so much that Netflix spread around the globe; and today, it has more than 183M subscribers in 190 countries (folks in the other countries probably have Netflix too but …). Tech and media companies realized that Netflix CEOs’ Hastings and Sarandos had a good thing going so they set up their own OTT service sites with their own unique, original content for a “reasonable” subscription fee. In no time, consumers around the globe had an embarrassment of rich, anytime/any screen content choices from Amazon, Disney, Apple, NBCUniversal, Hulu, CBS All Access, Pluto, Tubi, Britbox, Alibaba, Tencent Video, Hotstar, Canal +, Joyn, Viu, Stan, Foxtel and hundreds of other streaming SVOD services. Well, yes, there was a “reasonable” subscription cost with some, but others were ad-supported services to add to enrich your viewing options. AT&T liked the idea, so they went into debt for $85B for WarnerMedia on top of the $67B for DirecTV and then proceeded to improve what they bought by cutting operations, staff. It didn’t take long to make a good thing aahh … better? To compete more aggressively with NBCUniversal’s Peacock and the other streaming powerhouses, ViacomCBS said enough is enough! It was time to rebrand CBS All Access and show their 16.9M subscribers (and the competition) that they were going all in to become a true international super service. Rolling out early next year; that service will instantly have more than 40,000 TV episodes and movies from Paramount, Nickelodeon, Showtime, BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and Smithsonian as well as live programming, news, tentpole events, sports, local CBS stations nationwide and CBSN, CBS News and more all for a “reasonable” ($6 with ads, $10 without) monthly subscription. It will also offer international streaming, focusing on “high value” countries including Australia, Latin America, UK, Nordics, EU and countries to be named later. It has already buffed up their free streaming service Pluto TV and helped it expand the ad-supported stuff to meet the demands of APAC viewers and the desires of folks in the ROW. “We want to be big in AVOD – Pluto TV has nearly 30M active users in 20+ countries – and we want to be big in SVOD. Those two services I see as