One of the best perks on the subscription service Paramount Plus is about to go away for subscribers who opt to purchase its cheapest, ad-supported tier.
Earlier this year, parent company ViacomCBS relaunched its former streaming service CBS All Access under the Paramount Plus brand. The streaming service offered access to thousands of hours of ViacomCBS content from CBS, Paramount Pictures, MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and the Smithsonian Channel along with licensed movies and TV shows from other providers.
The service launched with two subscription tiers: A commercial-free version at $10 a month and a cheaper, $6 a month version subsidized by short commercial breaks during on-demand content.
One of the nicest features of both tiers of service was the availability of a user’s local CBS affiliate offered as a live stream, which meant subscribers who opted for either the cheaper, ad-supported tier or the premium tier were able to access live, local news, sports and shows as they aired on their local CBS station.
Starting June 7, though, this will change: Paramount Plus will drop the price of its ad-supported tier from $6 a month to $5 a month, and that price cut will also come with the removal of the live CBS feed from the cheaper package. After June 7, new customers and those with lapsed subscriptions will have to pay the higher, $10 a month price for access to their live CBS feed through the service.
There’s good news for customers who currently have a monthly or annual subscription to the ad-supported plan: Those plans will be grandfathered in for the foreseeable future. That means customers won’t lose access to their live CBS feed, though they’ll continue to pay $6 a month or $60 a year for the privilege (in other words, they won’t see that $1 price decrease).
Until June 7, new subscribers have the ability to lock in access to their live CBS feed at the cheapest rate of $6 a month when they sign up for a subscription to Paramount Plus and select the ad-supported tier of service.
Follow these steps to sign up for the cheapest Paramount Plus plan with live access to CBS:
Get Paramount Plus with access to live CBS for $6 a month:
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A live CBS plan will come in handy for sports fans: CBS extended its deal with the National Football League for telecast rights to certain games played Sunday mornings and afternoons. It also continues to hold the rights to NCAA college basketball games, PGA professional golf matches, SEC college football and the UEFA Champions League.
In addition to sports, most local CBS affiliates also broadcast daytime game shows like “The Price is Right” and “Let’s Make A Deal,” CBS prime-time programming and local news.
A Paramount Plus subscription will also unlock thousands of hours of movies and TV shows from across the ViacomCBS portfolio of cable networks and studios, including some theatrical releases of Paramount Pictures films starting next year.
Paramount Plus is also the home of a number of original series that can only be streamed through the service, including “The Good Fight,” “Why Women Kill” and “Coyotes.” Later this summer, the service is expected to add movies and TV shows from the premium movie network Epix at no additional cost.
