star trek: discovery

For a second week, ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ has helped CBS All Access achieve a record number of new signups.  Reportedly, the service saw a spike of 2.5X after the premiere of the pilot episode, ‘The Vulcan Hello’.  This puts subscriptions up over 200 percent from last year and as estimated by outside service App Annie, this equates to “well over $60,000 in the U.S.’

This follows record signups before the show’s premiere.  CBS All Access, like Netflix, etc. doesn’t release actual numbers, but they did state that those numbers set new highs for a single day, week and month.  After a tumultuous journey to the small screen, it seems that the wait was worth it.

President and COO, CBS Interactive, Marc DeBevoise said in a statement:

“Consumer response to the launch of Star Trek: Discovery has been tremendous.  The build up to the show’s premiere led us to a record-setting month, week and ultimately day of sign-ups. The second week of the series has also exceeded our expectations and is a credit to the brilliant and dedicated work of the show’s entire creative team and cast. We can’t wait for fans to see what comes next for the U.S.S. Discovery and its crew.”

While CBS All Access also boasts such attractions as the NFL and the finale of ‘Big Brother’ as well as the exclusive ‘Big Brother Live Feeds’, ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ is “the most streamed premiere of a CBS show across digital platforms on record, measured against all CBS programming – both in front of and behind the CBS All Access paywall.”

CBS intentionally picked ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ to help draw subscribers to their fledgling streaming service and as of right now, it appears to have worked.

On top of the numbers posted via the All Access app, these numbers don’t even account for signups on the CBS website or through connected devices.  So the numbers could be higher.  However, CBS does offer a 7-day trial and it’s believed that some of these paid subscriptions were from people who forgot to cancel their trials, so they are preparing for a drop next month.

The first three episodes of ‘Discovery’ are now available to stream, with a new episode arriving every Sunday at 8:30pm EST.  Like regular TV shows, the first season of ‘Discovery’ will be split into two “chapters” or halves.  The first half was supposed to consist of eight episodes but has been bumped to nine.  The last new episode will be available on November 12th.  The show returns with new episodes in January 2018.

Did you take the plunge and sign up?  Is it worth it?

Source: Variety