- Paramount Plus is here.
And I've selflessly been watching TV
for several hours already today
so that I could give you my thoughts on it.
So is it any good?
Is it better than the previous version that it's replacing?
Am I delirious from a 4:00 AM wake up time?
I guess we'll find out, let's dive in.
Thanks for watching everybody.
Don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoy this video,
if it's helpful to you.
All right, so let's talk about Paramount Plus.
What is it?
What content does it have?
Well, to start off, this is the successor to CBS All Access.
So if you've had that in the past,
maybe you're a subscriber already.
You should notice that that app,
on whatever device you're using to watch it,
will switch over today automatically
to the Paramount Plus app.
So it's a one to one switch,
if it doesn't happen automatically for you in time
you can go in and manually update the app.
And then it'll switch over to Paramount Plus.
Now because this is a successor to CBS All Access,
it's got all of that content.
So it's got your CBS All Access originals,
you know a couple of "Star Treks", "The Good Fight",
whatever other stuff was on there already.
So on, you get the picture.
You also get CBS sports content.
So plenty of soccer, you get Champions League,
Europa League, you get golf, hockey,
even some NFL football when that comes back.
And you also get live TV from a few channels.
Your local CBS affiliate, CBS News,
CBS Sports, HQ,
and ET Live.
Those are the live options right now.
But the whole point of this is that
it has now expanded beyond just the CBS branded content.
So when it comes to movies
we also get access to the Paramount library here
because this is well, Paramount Plus.
Now I'm not going to go through every single title
but by my count there are 695 movies on here.
And it also brings in some other TV brands as well.
So not just CBS but you also get BET,
Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon,
and the Smithsonian Channel.
These are all channels that are owned by ViacomCBS.
And this is awesome, right?
Well, kind of.
You do get access to a lot of that non CBS branded stuff
but the catalogs are often, ah ha,
hit or miss, partial episode lists.
For example, I was excited
when I clicked into the MTV portal
to see that they had some VH1 content there as well.
So I clicked over to "Behind the Music".
Classic, but there are only, count them,
two episodes of "Behind the Music".
Now this might be the most egregious example
but it did get me wondering
and I poked around a little bit more.
MTV's "Unplugged" series has been
in steady production since 1989.
How many episodes are on Paramount Plus?
Eight, eight episodes.
"RuPaul's Drag Race"?
You do get more of that
but still it's only 10 out of 13 seasons.
Five out of 12 seasons of "Tosh.0".
Only 30 episodes of "Beavis and Butt-Head".
Two out of three seasons of "Chappelle's show".
You get the picture.
Now I get that there are some shows
and episodes that are licensed elsewhere
and it's going to take time
for Paramount Plus to bring them all back into the fold.
But honestly that doesn't make it any less frustrating
in practice because sometimes
you will get a full run of something like "The Hills",
or whatever, and sometimes you won't.
Now I can't go through every title here.
But I bring it up
because if you are signing up for Paramount Plus
in order to get access to some specific show or another,
Oh, you may just want to use the free trial period
to poke around first really thoroughly
and see if they actually have what you want.
So what is this going to cost you?
Well, Paramount Plus costs the same as CBS All Access
at least at the moment.
$10 a month for the premium, no commercials plan
or you can get the commercial supported plan for $6 a month.
Either way you get a month free to start.
At least that's the offer through the end of March, not bad.
It was reported that only the premium option
would be available for a few months.
And then we would get
that commercial supported option in June.
But when I went in this morning to double check
I saw both options on the signup page.
So.
But anyway, that's if you're a new subscriber.
If you're already a CBS All Access subscriber, no worries.
Your plan carries over automatically
whether it's commercial supported or commercial free.
Now how can you watch it?
Well again, because this is a carry over of CBS All Access,
it's available everywhere that that was.
So all the major streaming devices, PC, mobile, the works.
You get three simultaneous streams here
and you can create different profiles.
So if you've got a family, people looking to watch it,
you should be set there.
And now we get to the question at hand.
Should you sign up for Paramount Plus?
Huh.
(chuckles)
It's a good question.
Here's my initial thought,
though I do reserve the right to change my mind
as I spend more time with Paramount Plus.
If you loved CBS All Access,
if you were a subscriber for a long time, then keep going.
It's great.
You'll enjoy having the additional content
to fill out the library here.
If you weren't a CBS All Access user,
or maybe you were and you weren't
all that satisfied with it.
Is there going to be enough here to claw you back?
There might be enough extra content
to entice you back over to Paramount Plus.
But like I mentioned before,
if you're in it for a specific show,
it could be hit or miss.
So go check out if it actually has that show's full run
or if it's just a couple of episodes.
Now the free trial period here
definitely makes it worth checking out.
In that case, you can go pop in, use it for a little while,
see if they actually have what you're after.
But I'll admit I'm not as jazzed about Paramount Plus
as I was when I tried Discovery Plus a month ago.
So I do think that there's some potential here
but for now it's about as good as CBS All Access was,
with a little extra stuff on top.
Take that for what it's worth I guess.
Of course this could be an interesting one to watch
as we go forward,
as Paramount Plus claws back shows and episodes
that are currently scattered
among the other streaming services.
Could be that it'll get even better.
We'll see.
I am curious though about what this means
for the Smithsonian streaming channel or BET Plus.
I think there's some others I'm not thinking of.
But anyway those are separate streaming channels entirely.
BET Plus is $10 a month by itself.
Will it get absorbed entirely into Paramount Plus
or will they try to keep them separate
and maximize that subscription revenue?
I don't know.
We'll see.
For now though, hit me with your thoughts,
your comments, your questions.
Go to the comments section below
and let me know what you think about Paramount Plus.
I'm really curious to hear what you all have to say.
Don't forget to like and subscribe
if you enjoyed this video.
Thanks for watching everybody.
I will see you next time.