The new CBS App for iPhone and iPad users offers full-episode streaming of CBS programming from primetime, daytime and late night. The new app further extends the reach of the shows’ audience, providing more flexibility and opportunity for catch-up viewing and opens yet another monetization window for content.
The CBS App, available for immediate download from the App Store, offers original and second-screen features for NCIS, The Good Wife, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, How I Met Your Mother, The Young and The Restless, The Late Show With David Letterman, among others.
Daytime and late night programming will be available within 24 hours after initial airing, while most primetime programs will be available on the eighth day after broadcast.
CBS also announced it would introduce similar full-episode streaming apps for all major mobile and tablet platforms later this year, including Android and Windows 8.
“We have been methodically and strategically finding new ways to satiate the appetite for our content on new platforms, while tapping into the tremendous revenue provided by doing so,” said Les Moonves, CBS Corp. CEO. “Our announcement today achieves both of these objectives, while protecting our very healthy current ecosystem. In addition, by making our shows available on all the leading mobile devices out there, we are confident we will bring a whole new set of viewers to the CBS Television Network and build upon our standing as the #1 network in the business.”
The new CBS App will integrate the existing CBS Connect App experience by the start of the Fall TV season. At that time, the CBS App will offer: integrated social feeds; live events that allow fans to engage directly with talent; and second-screen experiences synched to the broadcast with additional content for select shows.
Buick is the official launch partner for the new CBS App, bringing users CBS programming with reduced commercial interruption for the first several weeks after launch.
The new app further extends the CBS.com experience to viewers, where the website has led all other broadcast networks in terms of unique viewers for 51 consecutive months (comScore Video Metrix, February 2013).
RBR-TVBR observation: We know that networks like CBS can’t offer live streaming yet because it would diminish ratings at local affiliates. We think the live streaming should therefore be offered via local affiliates’ sites and apps. Nielsen and other measurement providers would be able to tally that viewing. Right now, DirecTV, FiOS and other MVPDs are offering live cable network streaming to subscribers’ devices, but not the broadcast networks. Aren’t we leaving affiliates out of the picture here? There’s got to be a way.
