Following a similar move which saw it becoming the first internet service provider to distribute HBO NOW to its broadband customers, New York-area cable TV company Cablevision announced this morning that it will offer its internet customers the ability to subscribe to CBS’s over-the-top TV services, including CBS All Access and Showtime without an accompanying pay TV subscription.
The deal was forged in the wake of the two companies’ updated, multi-year agreement, which also saw a renewal of Cablevision’s carriage of Showtime, the CBS Sports Network and the Smithsonian Channel on its cable TV service.
A number of traditional pay TV providers are attempting to figure out how to shift their businesses to support the growing streaming video trend, which sees a number of current customers “cutting the cord,” while other – often younger – customers never sign up for pay TV in the first place (the “cord-nevers”), in favor of using online services like Netflix.
Some companies, like Dish Network with Sling TV, Comcast with its upcoming service Stream, or Verizon (disclosure: AOL/TechCrunch parent company) with its mobile video on demand service Go90, are attempting to launch their own streaming platforms as a means of competing. Cablevision, on the other hand, is simply becoming a reseller of over-the-top video streaming services, including as of this March, HBO NOW. And in April, it became the first pay TV provider to distribute Hulu to its broadband customers.
Read the entire story here.
