Allow me to recap, as I generally do, a couple of seemingly unrelated current occasions on the earth of streaming video:
- ViacomCBS is planning to rebrand CBS All Access in early 2021 with a brand new identify and extra content material. But as Decider’s Scott Porch reported this week, the community is shying away from any drastic adjustments. Showtime, BET+, and Noggin will nonetheless be separate streaming companies, and new exhibits from cable channels reminiscent of Nickelodeon and Comedy Central gained’t arrive on All Access (or no matter it’s known as) till a 12 months after they air on TV.
- Disney will reroute its reside motion Mulan remake from theaters to Disney+, the place it’ll price $30 on prime of the standard $7 per 30 days subscription price. This shall be a purchase order, not a rental, however prospects will nonetheless lose entry to the film in the event that they unsubscribe from Disney+.
- NBCUniversal introduced that its Peacock streaming service will carry all eight Harry Potter movies in October, lower than two months after they depart from HBO Max. But the movies will solely keep on Peacock for a few month, Vulture’s Josef Adalian experiences, at which level they’ll head to NBC’s TV channels earlier than returning to Peacock in 2021.
Less bloat, decrease costs, extra confusion
To be clear, I don’t assume TV networks’ approaches are essentially unhealthy for cord-cutters. People all the time say they need extra a la carte-style streaming choices, and in a way, that’s what companies like Disney+, CBS All Access, and Peacock are providing.
But there’s all the time a trade-off to those varieties of choices, and on this case it’s Netflix-style simplicity. In lieu of bigger, dearer streaming companies, we get extra upsells, extra worth tiers, and extra confusion. As extra media firms work out how one can extricate themselves from cable and its declining subscriber numbers, issues will solely get messier.
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