CBS All Access

The highly anticipated series will premiere on Sunday, Sept. 24, at 8:30 p.m. That same night, the two first episodes will be available to stream on CBS All Access, with subsequent episodes premiering exclusively on the streamer every Sunday. However, the 15-episode first season of the sci-fi series will be split into two chapters. The first eight episodes will roll out through Nov. 5, and then the series will return with seven new episodes in January 2018.

With this new collaborative agreement, affiliates are joining with CBS to distribute premium content to new “skinny bundles” reaching viewers coast-to-coast across multiple platforms and screens anytime and anywhere, including on Hulu and YouTube TV in addition to CBS All Access.

Attempting to dispel the notion that CBS All Access’ user base is composed of a bunch of young, urban-dwelling cord cutters, CBS Interactive CEO Jim Lanzone told a packed room full of middle-aged broadcast-industry folks at the NAB Show that the average viewer of the SVOD platform is just like them. “It’s an early-40s audience — only 30% of the audience is millennial,” said Lanzone, who wears the dual hat of CBS Corp. chief digital officer. “And the vast majority are pay-TV subscribers.”

The Christine Baranski-led spinoff of The Good Wife will return to CBS’s OTT service for a Season 2 in early 2018.

In last month’s debut of The Good Fight, The Good Wife spinoff on CBS’s streaming service, lawyer and Hillary Clinton supporter Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranksi) watched and cringed as Trump was sworn into office. “We have created very politically aware characters, and it would simply be peculiar if they weren’t talking about what was going on politically right now,” said Michelle King, who created and produces the CBS All Access show with her husband, Robert.

CBS CEO Les Moonves likes the chances that CBS All Access and Showtime OTT will go global soon. Speaking today at a Deutsche Bank investor conference, Moonves said there is a long-term opportunity internationally for both services and that selling the services on a combined basis could make sense.

Showtime’s internet-only subscriber base has climbed to 1.5 million, while CBS All Access — the broadcaster’s live and on-demand paid streaming service — is nearing the same number of subs, according to CBS CEO Leslie Moonves.

With this spinoff from The Good Wife — and without Julianna Margulies — CBS hopes to anchor its streaming service, All Access.

CBS is looking at a new marketing design, bridging traditional linear TV show marketing and a digital media platform — this for its upcoming The Good Fight to air on CBS All Access. CBS is taking its high awareness program brand, The Good Wife — which ended last season — to spin off The Good Fight.

Here are three, starting with the fact that the field is dominated by four players: Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and YouTube, though Amazon is emerging as the real revenue-generating juggernaut among the lot. Sahil Patel notes that TV networks are also finding it worth their while to go directly to consumers now.

CBS is probably not the first company that comes to mind if you had to name a digitally savvy entertainment brand. Yet it has surprised rivals with the success of its CBS All Access streaming service. A lot of the development of the broadcast network’s digital savvy can be traced back to its decision not to invest in Hulu. It has stocked up All Access with the complete set of catch-up episodes for such shows as Blue Bloods.

CBS will launch the biggest consumer marketing push for its CBS All Access service to date early next year around the Feb. 19 premiere of its The Good Wife spinoff, The Good Fight, the first original scripted series to bow on the Eye’s streaming service.

NFL on CBS games will be available on the streaming service beginning Sunday, Dec. 4. CBS All Access subscribers will be able to stream all NFL on CBS games, including Thursday Night Football on CBS, as well as pregame and halftime coverage live on CBS All Access platforms

Danny Feldheim has been named VP of original content for CBS All Access. He joins the streaming service from Fox’s drama-programming department. In his new role, Feldheim will focus on current and developing programming, reporting to Julie McNamara, EVP of original content for All Access.

The in-the-works Good Wife spinoff — starring Christine Baranski (Diane) and Cush Jumbo (Lucca) — will launch earlier than expected — this February — on CBS, before moving exclusively to CBS All Access.

CBS is hoping to push the 1 million subscriber number for its All Access OTT service much higher as it rolls out its first original series beginning later this month. Big Brother: Over the Top, a digital-only version of the CBS summer staple, will debut Sept. 28. That will be followed in January by Star Trek: Discovery, with a Good Wife spinoff coming next spring. Those shows will supplement the service’s 7,500-plus episodes of current and classic shows, as well as access to livestream the local CBS station.

CBS is one of the nation’s biggest sellers of ad inventory. But a lot of digital video viewers hate ads — which the company just acknowledged by introducing a commercial-free version of its CBS All Access subscription streaming service. Customers can pay $9.99 a month to watch the on-demand content without commercials. Or they can go with the current offering, with ads, for $5.99.

CBS is making around $100 million in revenue off both its Showtime and CBS All Access SVOD platforms, according to CBS COO Joseph Ianniello who spoke at Nomura’s 2016 Media, Telecom & Internet Conference. The “back of the envelope math,” as Ianiello called it, is compelling to pay-TV operators, given that CBS has taken the most aggressive position among broadcasters in regards to negotiating retransmission licensing fees, as well as distribution on operator-backed OTT platforms like Sling TV.

CBS is considering creating a commercial-free option for its subscription streaming service CBS All Access. “We’re toying with the idea of a commercial free option and how we might roll that out to consumers,” Marc DeBevoise, president of CBS Interactive, said Wednesday at the Television Critics Association summer press tour.

Following up a Comic-Con panel in July about Star Trek: Discovery, executive producer Bryan Fuller shared details about the 13-episode series’ setting, characters and innovations at a Television Critics Association meeting Wednesday.

CBS has not one but two big twists in store for the next season (the 19th) of Big Brother. The upcoming cycle of the long-running reality series will move to the fall and air exclusively on CBS All Access

The title and footage of the starship Discovery were teased at the end of a Comic-Con panel Saturday celebrating the series’ 50th anniversary with actors from every previous Star Trek series.  Discovery executive producer Bryan Fuller said the show coming to the CBS All Access streaming video service will draw upon the optimistic tone established by Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.

Online video consumption is continuing to grow, with users spending more time watching over-the-top video than before, but price is gradually becoming less of a reason to cut the cord — if audiences are cutting it at all. However, viewers are increasingly demanding better quality from their OTT video stream, and that may be behind a drop in YouTube viewing.

As CBS All Access is mounting a push in original programming, the SVOD and live-streaming service is bringing in a top development executive to spearhead the efforts. Julie McNamara, who has led drama development at CBS Television Studios for the past 10 years, has been named to the newly created position of EVP original content for CBS All Access.

CBS All Access said Wednesday that Christine Baranski will star in the new series. Its title wasn’t announced. The drama will pick up one year after the events in the finale of The Good Wife, which aired recently on CBS.

Sources say CBS is in final negotiations to set up a spinoff of The Good Wife focusing on Christine Baranski’s Diane Lockhart character that would air on CBS All Access. Actress Cush Jumbo, who joined the Good Wife cast in the show’s seventh and final season, is also expected to star in the spinoff. Sources cautioned that the deal is still in negotiations for a straight-to-series order and may not come to fruition.

CBS All Access, the broadcaster’s online-only service that lets subscribers stream its live programming for $5.99 a month, may launch an ad-free option at a higher rate, the company’s CEO Les Moonves said Monday.

CBS Corp. chief Leslie Moonves floated the possibility of an advertising-free version of CBS All Access and poured cold water on Apple TV’s plans to launch a cable-like channel package during his appearance Tuesday at the Business Insider conference in New York.

Instead of trashing the network news business, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings should focus on his core business. With the big old-line media companies growing more and more interested in the potential of OTT, Hastings is liable to find his programming suppliers morph into competitors.