I'm taking another day off from writing about how the PTAB Trials Board needs oversight. Instead, tonight, I'm writing about a big disappointment that CBS has unleashed on its customers.
CBS TV shows are not available on Hulu. Understandable, it's their choice. I'm a Hulu subscriber, but CBS doesn't want their content on Hulu. Fine. So they offer this variant of a product called CBS All Access. Excellent. On Roku - check; I have a Roku device. CBS All Access costs $6.99/month. Sure, no problem. Here's your $7 CBS.
What do I want to watch? Madam Secretary. My wife has watched the episodes that we recorded on DirecTV and I want to catch up so in 2016 we can watch the new episodes together. It's just one of those guilty pleasure shows that is basically just interesting.
WTF is up with the damn commercials CBS?
Here's an example of the frustration. Last night I didn't get through Season 2, Episode #1 of Madam Secretary using the CBS All Access app on Roku. I watched about 1/2 of the episode. Lots of commercials last night. Tonight, let's watch the show where I left off. No problem.
So silly me I figured I would just resume where I left off last night. Not so simple. I have to watch a series of commercials before I can just resume where I left off. Commercials before I start watching again where I left off? I might end up watching more commercials during this process than if I just watched the normal playing of the show as broadcast, without fast-forwarding through the commercials.
I jumped on the Google machine and find this series of posts in the search results -- this one on Reddit. Exactly my problem. Complaints about commercials dating back over a year. No improvement I guess.
I think there are more commercials presented watching this show on the paid "all access" of CBS via Roku then if I just watched the recorded version on DirecTV. A version of the show where I can 30-second skip through the commercials.
So CBS, your "All Access" version is a big disappointment(**). The plus side for you - no one reads this blog.
** these views represent the opinions of me, Jay Guiliano, and not Patdek. Because the CBS IP group should be a client of Patdek at some point.