Warner Bros. Discovery to spend more than $1 billion downsizing
While we don’t have details on this huge budget, it’s safe to assume that both Warner Bros. and Discovery Communications are taking advantage of the fact that “Star Trek: Discovery” is an unprecedentedly huge hit, and are using it as a launchpad for new projects to begin production.
While that has not been confirmed, it does look like CBS has been doing the same when it’s time to cut costs. Earlier this month, CBS announced that it would be shutting down its Discovery TV and other cable channels, in order to make room for “CBS All Access.”
The plan is to launch the service for free, with subscribers paying only for video-on-demand and live broadcast shows. It will feature programming from CBS Television Studios, including “The Good Wife,” “Mom,” “NCIS,” “Bull,” and “NCIS: Cyber.”
For example, CBS All Access will have “NCIS: Cyber” — one of the most popular shows on CBS’s digital-first entertainment service.
On Monday, the day before the “Star Trek” Season 3 premiere, CBS said its plan was simply to make way for a “new online experience.”
It seems likely that Discovery will continue to air on CBS All Access, and the new digital-first service will be launched soon.
Still, the move to focus CBS’s digital efforts will allow CBS to become more competitive against Netflix. CBS’s latest attempt to attract attention was a $7.5 billion mega-merger with Liberty Global in January of 2014, in a bid to grow CBS’s ownership share of the cable networks.
CBS is also launching a new website under the CBS All Access banner that will be accessible at www.cbsa.com or by downloading the CBS All Access app for iPhone, iPad, or Android devices.
The website, which will be updated regularly, will allow users to access more than 17,000 episodes of “Star Trek: Discovery,” as well as content from CBS’s other channels, like Showtime, with more than 4,000
