Farewell, CBS All Access, and welcome, Paramount+! The service formerly known as CBS All Access has been re-launched under the Paramount+ name, and the changes here are much more than just brand-deep. To find out what's new — and to determine if Paramount+ is truly bigger and better than the old CBS All Access — read our all-new Paramount+ review.
In testing Paramount+, I found it to be a sneaky good service with a few flaws. Paramount+ lacks the name recognition and splashy debut that made Disney+ an instant hit, but it has a nice blend of live TV and on-demand content that will appeal to fans of CBS shows and Paramount films. The lack of a few quality-of-life features is one drawback of using Paramount+, but don't let that deter you if you're a fan of what ViacomCBS has to offer. It's the content that makes or breaks this service. While CBS All Access was great for CBS super-fans and not worth much to anyone else, Paramount+ is built on expanded content offerings that make it more interesting than its forerunner.
Paramount+: Truly a Mountain of Entertainment
Pros
- Live TV options, including a live feed of your local CBS station (in most markets)
- A beefed-up on-demand catalog that includes Viacom properties like Nickelodeon and MTV
- Recently aired content available — no need to wait until the season ends
- Early looks at Paramount movies that are still in theaters
Cons
- Missing some basic quality-of-life features, most notably watchlists
- Theatrical releases come along 45 days later (rather than right away)
- Lacks exciting original content
- Don't expect to find every CBS or Viacom show, much less every Paramount movie
What You Can Watch on Paramount+
Using Paramount+, I was able to watch two general types of content: on-demand content and live TV. On-demand content makes up the bulk of what you can watch on this service, but I felt like the live TV element — limited though it was — really added to the experience.
First, the on-demand content: Paramount+ is run by ViacomCBS (the parent company of Paramount Pictures), so I wasn't surprised to find that the service's content library was chock full of CBS and Viacom content. ViacomCBS owns a lot of media, so the library is pretty impressive. Shows run the gamut from “NCIS” to “SpongeBob SquarePants,” and the film selection is similarly broad.
There's definitely an emphasis on shows that have already aired on networks that ViacomCBS owns. There are a few Paramount+ original series that are exclusive to the platform, but even these tend to rely on existing ViacomCBS properties: the original series “The Real World Homecoming: New York,” for example, builds on MTV's long-running reality series “The Real World” by reuniting cast members from past seasons; “The Challenge: All-Stars” does something similar, bringing back MTV reality stars for another installment of a series that began on MTV. Then there's the “SpongeBob” spin-off “Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years,” bonus-content program “60 Minutes Plus,” and several “Star Trek” shows, including “Star Trek: Discovery” and “Star Trek: Picard.”
There are a few interesting Paramount+ originals — the “Star Trek” series, for example — that largely deliver on their promise, but it's always clear that Paramount+ is built on the shows that ViacomCBS already has. Above all, this is a place to stream hits from CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, and other ViacomCBS channels.
The selection of on-demand movies is strong, but not overwhelming. There are some great films on this service, including “The Godfather,” but don’t expect a sprawling library the size of Netflix’s — this selection is much leaner and is (as you might expect) confined to films from the ViacomCBS/Paramount family.
One nice thing about the movie selection is that it will include brand-new films released in theaters. Paramount flicks will arrive on Paramount+ 45 days after their theatrical debut, before they become available on other services (or on Blu-ray). That’s a nice perk, though Paramount+ is being outdone here by Max, which lets subscribers stream Warner Brothers movies the very same day that they’re released (Disney+ has a same-day policy, too, but charges subscribers extra to stream each film).
On top of all of this on-demand content, Paramount+ offers live TV content. Like its forerunner, CBS All Access, Paramount+ will give you a livestream of your local CBS station (there are a few markets exempted from this feature, but Paramount+ seems to have pretty good coverage).
Paramount+ also comes loaded with live news content and sports content, including Europa League soccer matches. Paramount+ would be a pretty good sports streaming service even without the extras, since plain old CBS already comes with NFL games and some great March Madness livestreams. With the extra live sports content, Paramount+ really elevates its sports cred. This isn't a “sports streaming service” in the sense that ESPN+ is, but I was impressed with the sports content I found. If you're a sports fan like me, I think you'll be pretty pleased.
How It Felt to Use Paramount+
Paramount+ has some — though, somewhat surprisingly, not all — of the basic features you’d expect from a streaming service in 2021. You can create multiple user profiles, start watching content on one device and then finish on another, and mark viewing preferences in the form of a sort of “favorites” system. Not only that, but Paramount+ will also let you add movies and shows to “My List,” a feature we think was a recent addition since they didn’t have it when we last reviewed it. This was a plus for me since I really enjoyed the “Watchlist” feature that I had from other streaming platforms.
Aside from little quality-of-life hiccups like the lack of a watchlist, Paramount+ is pretty easy to use. Fans of streaming services like Netflix and Hulu know the drill by now, and Paramount+ sticks pretty close to the tried-and-true formula: expect rows of movies and TV shows, with icons that look like the covers of Blu-ray cases. Content in each row will have something in common, which may be a genre but is just as likely to be an algorithmic selection “for you.” The latter doesn’t work quite as well here as it does in some larger libraries, in my opinion — with fewer titles, Paramount+ just has less to go on than Netflix when it tries to guess my next favorite — but if you use this service for long enough, it’s sure to get to know your preferences.
The Paramount+ app also lets you tab over from the home page to look at dedicated menus for things like “Live TV” (a simple vertical list of the few live TV options Paramount+ offers), “Browse” (a screen that takes a tiled approach instead of the scrolling rows of the home page which I found less usable than the main page was), and “Search” (a tab that looks and works exactly as you’d expect). There’s nothing groundbreaking going on here, but I think you’d find that using Paramount+ is stress-free and intuitive.
Paramount+ Features and Streaming Quality
Paramount+ has some 4K content available for premium subscribers, but the bulk of what you'll see will top out at 1080p. That's fairly standard for on-demand streaming, if not particularly spectacular.
More impressive is the livestream quality of Paramount+. Most services top out at 720p for live TV streaming (and for good reason — when the content is live, that limits buffering and makes it harder to deliver a steady stream to begin with, a problem that only gets worse when you throw in the extra data you'd need for a higher quality stream). This is not the case with Paramount+, though: In many cases, it streams live content at up to 1080p and refreshes the screen at a rate of 60 fps (frames per second), which is a remarkable accomplishment for live TV. Not every CBS station gets this treatment — you'll have better luck if your local CBS station is wholly owned by ViacomCBS (some stations are owned by other companies and cut a deal with CBS to become an “affiliate”). Every station seems to at least reach the 720p industry standard for live streaming, though.
Due to buffering, you should expect all of the livestreams to operate on a delay. I didn't find this to be a big problem, though I did sometimes have to tell friends to stop texting me about a basketball or soccer game to avoid spoilers. (This sort of streaming delay, by the way, is an issue you'll find on every single live TV streaming service. All of these services have to build in a delay so that they can do the buffering that's necessary to keep your stream reliable.) In my tests, the delay was typically about 45 seconds relative to my antenna feed. The longest delay I recorded in my trials was over a minute.
I tested Paramount+ on a wired connection, a Wi-Fi connection, and a wireless network connection. I had no problems whatsoever streaming live or on-demand content over any connection type. Loading times were quick, streams were uninterrupted and in consistently high quality, and the only noticeable thing was the aforementioned live TV delay.
Paramount+ Platform Support
Paramount+ is a new service in most ways, but it's also a new iteration on ViacomCBS’s prior streaming service, CBS All Access. That seems to have given Paramount+ a jump start on platform support. Right from launch day, Paramount+ supported every major platform, including Roku, Fire TV, Android TV, Chromecast, iOS, Android, and web browsers.
For this review, I tested Paramount Plus on Roku, Fire TV, iOS, and Mac. I found the experience to be very consistent across the board. The Roku and Fire TV apps used the familiar rows of TV show and movie “covers” or title cards to organize content, and the mobile apps do a good job of translating that same sort of interface to smaller screens.
The Value of Paramount+
There are two types of subscriptions available through Paramount+: “limited commercials” and “commercial-free.” As you'd probably guess, the big difference here is that one of these has more commercials than the other — though the differences are slightly more complicated than that.
The premium “commercial-free” version of Paramount+ has no commercials in the on-demand content. It will still, however, have commercials in the live TV content. This makes sense, to a degree: your local CBS station has commercial breaks, and there's no way for Paramount+ to get around that. Still, it might have been nice to have a “Be right back” screen up during that break instead of the commercials, considering the extra cash spent on the supposedly commercial-free plan.
Another difference between the two plans is the ability to download content for offline viewing. That's a privilege reserved for the pricier “commercial-free” tier. Also reserved for top-tier subscribers is the 4K content; with a regular subscription, your streams will top out at 1080p.
On either subscription plan, the price of Paramount+ makes it a fairly affordable streaming service. Most streaming services we review fall either in the $5-$10 range (Hulu or Disney+) or the $13-$17 range (Netflix or Max), and Paramount sits comfortably in the former at $5.99 per month. That's for the best because this streaming service feels a bit “supplemental” to me — it's hard to imagine using Paramount+ exclusively, but it's easy to imagine adding it to my other subscriptions and enjoying what it has to offer. Because the price is right, Paramount+ offers some solid value as a role player in your streaming subscription lineup.
Our Verdict on Paramount+
CBS All Access was a Paramount+ forerunner, delivering service that was tough to evaluate. It was clearly designed to be supplemental to larger, pricier services like Netflix. But it was so locked into CBS content that, even at its affordable price, our CBS All Access review concluded that the service was “for CBS super-fans only.” With Paramount+, ViacomCBS took another crack at creating a service worth a few bucks a month — and, this time around, they've succeeded.
Like its predecessor, Paramount+ is definitely not a one-stop shop for streaming. But it's not really trying to be, and — more importantly — it's not priced that way. For six bucks a month, this service will give you a nice selection of TV shows, movies, live TV, and sports. Paramount+ is no superstar, but it can be a valuable part of your streaming starting lineup.
Paramount+ will hold some extra appeal to folks who like European soccer, since it offers live matches from both Europa League and Europe's Champions League. This service is also a slam dunk for anyone who lives out of antenna range of their nearest CBS station. If you can't already use your antenna to get CBS free and watch NFL games, CBS dramas, March Madness, and more, then you've got a great alternative route to all of those things in the form of Paramount+.
There will be folks who won't find Paramount+ to be worth it, and that's fine. If you already get CBS for free over the air — or as part of a live TV multichannel service like Hulu + Live TV — then that will limit the upside to Paramount+. And if you're not a fan of CBS, Nickelodeon, MTV, or Comedy Central, then you won't find much to love here. For the rest of us, though, Paramount+ is a solid streaming option at a great price.
I had CBS All Access and loved it. Never had technical difficulties. Streaming was smooth and consistent. Then the changover to Paramount+ happened. This truly is the worst app I’ve ever used. Often I get the spinning circle of death and the app doesn’t launch. When it does launch, the audio and video match up for about 30 seconds and then the video drags and the audio continues. For instance, while watching football, I could hear what was happening 30 seconds before I saw it. ugh. I’ve submitted service requests and written reviews…crickets. Goodbye Paramount+ I hope you get your act together. For now I’ll be going to fuboTV, even though it costs more.
Without question, the worst streaming service ever created. It’s completely unreliable, even with a 1GB ethernet connection. Service cannot stream for more than 5 minutes without buffering or just out-right failing.
These problems happen on a consistent basis (at least two or three times per episode of anything). And don’t expect to be able to watch anything live or you’ll miss half the show waiting on the buffering to catch up.
I AGREE….VERY VERY OMG VERY UNRELIABLE
I just started the “free” trial week, and I am cancelling today. I watched one episode of Seal Team, and the audio was so poor that I could not understand half of what was being ski. Too bad they feel they must charge for something that has been free, and then make it a horrible product 🙁
The web browser player is trash, constantly freezing after commercial breaks which forces you to refresh then it does not remember you already watched the commercials so your forced to watch them again and hope it does not freeze.
Really wish they would fix this.
Be forewarned. If you want to watch to start watching a show and it has been on for multiple seasons and you want to start from the 1st season. You might be able to watch a few of the beginning seasons but then they will want to charge you to watch the remaining seasons. Worse yet if they let you watch all of the seasons but then they skip episodes because of license BS.
Paramount plus is not good. It will give you errors constantly and not save how far you have watched a movie. If you try and rewind or fast forward it will give you an error. Not worth the money at all. Do not recommend at all.
You suck can’t watch half the stuff u advertise
No refund don’t spend a dime cooks are going to enjoy your money
Worst ever! Freezes… sometimes nothing! I love Yellowstone and barely got through the 2 episodes they have! Cannot believe they let Paramount put them on this crap network! Bring it back to another network!
Paramount + works fine until customer service closes. I try to watch my local CBS affiliate, and it’s horrible sometimes. I’ve contacted customer service several times about this issue. It works for a week or so then right back to the same thing. It’s apparent they have a clue about what’s wrong or won’t admit whats wrong. I never had this problem before the change from CBS All Access. The streaming is good, but live tv sux. It will make you cuss. It always happens during an important statement, but never during the commercial.
Paramount+ is the worst. Way too many issues loading certain shows, often not even displaying the error code. I/we are being ripped off by a big company that is not fulfilling its contract with paying customers. Maybe the Attorney General of our states should investigate.
Loading issues, freezes, app kicks you out while watching a show, skips and you have to use your phone app to start a show for the TV to play it. Horrible audio, horrible quality. This should not be a thing this day in age 12-31-21. I have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Show Time and NO issues!!! Very unsatisfied.
Oops, my mistake. They are not advertisements. They are, in Para-Speak, “Informational Segments that keep you apprised and informed”. Per the FAQs at Paramount, I should only see them once a day on most shows. Star Trek Discovery was not on the exception list
Except I see these advertisements every 2nd or 3rd episode.
Then the buffering issues. It doesn’t stop. I can be rockin’ along at greater than 150mb/s coming down, and at least half that going up. Buffer buffer buffer. I thought bufferin’ was only for aspirin? Nope, it’s for Paramount+ as well.
The channel is the pits. Something is selected, so you click to select it. But wait! Paramount thinks you will appreciate something else more and launch it instead.
I cancelled my trial on 2nd day. Wish I had never signed up.
Full Disclosure:
I am using Paramount+ as a channel on Amazon Prime, via a 2017 Roku Ultra connected via WiFi and HDMI TV at native resolution of 1920×1080.
Oddly, all the other streaming services, Amazon included, don’t seem to have the technical issues that Paramount+ does.
When my local station pre-empts something like CBS Sunday morning, I’d like to watch on Paramount Plus. First, there is a long delay before they post it. Secondly, within one segment they slug in about 9 ads. Makes the viewing experience total junk.
Paramount plus is a horrible service
Paramount plus likes to rip people off. I haven’t had it from months but they took it out of my checking account anyway and now when I look on my TV I have to sign in so why did they take money out because they’re greedy and they don’t want to give you your money back when they take it from you even though you don’t have the channel I’ve been trying to get my money back for months and it is not happened and this is the worst channel to have because there’s nothing on there anyway.
Paramount plus is the worst station you could possibly get I got charged for the month and I don’t even have it and it won’t give me my money back apparently so if you get Paramount plus be careful because they will steal from you and the station isn’t even worth getting because there’s nothing on there anyway
Terrible service. This channel is the worst. Constantly buffering, then errors in the middle of program. Once you get it back up and running, it goes to commercials. On the last commercial, it buffers and errors again. Tells you to come back and try later. Not worth the money because of the aggravation. I have had it 3 months now and it only happens on this streaming channel none of the other channels have this buffering problem. Save your money and choose a different streaming channel.
I am about to cancel my subscription if this does not get fixed. I can’t watch a whole episode of what I’m watching because it loads and then an error message will pop up. I hate that I am left hanging until later that I try again. I DO NOT WANT TO CANCEL SO PLEASE PARAMOUNT FIX THIS ISSUE!!!
Horrible service in Canada, very limited show options not worth it as a Canadian
Paramount Plus streaming has some real technical problems, maybe not enough servers, or App software bugs ?
When we try to watch Star Trek Discovery on the Weekend, just keeps loading, does not work, very frustrating, no other Paramount shows load on the weekend. All my other streaming Apps work fine! Wish another App would carry the new Star Trek and Picard.
Bad support at Paramount Plus. Have a new Samsung 4K smart TV with the latest versionsof software and app software. Tried all recommended solutions on the Paramount website. Have spent hours on the phone and contacting them. They told me they would”elevate” my problem 3 weeks ago, still no solutions. Have run a speed test on the TV and got 44 MPS at the TV, should be fast enough for streaming. Please Paramount Fix this problem.
I loved CBS All Access. I watched a series and then wanted to go back and watch it again. I go to Episode 1 and it plays episode 6. I call customer support and they are very nice and try to fix it. They have to refer me to level 2 technical support and give me a case number. I wait a week, no email, no phone call. I call back customer service, again very nice. I find out the case is closed, it’s a known problem. Now they have to refer me to level 3. I’m not holding my breath. Don’t bother wasting your money. It freezes half the time on both TVs and now more shows than most freeze and you can’t get back to where you were.
Regardless of all the advertising hype, your Paramount Plus subscription WILL NOT GET YOU SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL. I’ve been a Paramount + subscriber for several years and was REALLY looking forward to finally being able to see Sunday night football. NOPE. Not a single game aired, even though all the advertising says you’ll get to see it.
Yes, I have a premium membership. But probably not for long cause this really really SUCKS.
I don’t think this reviewer actually has Paramount Plus. in the cons section he claims it doesn’t have a watch list. I’ve had this service for almost 3 years not Paramount plus but I had CBS and then CBS became Paramount Plus and it’s always had a watch list it’s called my list I think but nevertheless it’s always had a watch list it’s right on the home page go down a couple lines and whoop there it is.
the thing that really irritates me about CBS and now Paramount Plus is 90% probably closer to 99% of the time when you’re watching episode you’ll get to the end of that episode your exit back to the main menu and there’s that episode under continue watching click on it and you find out that they’re stupid software only thinks you watch around 50% of the show. So you click on said show you fast forward through it so you can get it off your continue watching list get all the way to the end of the episode exit go back to the main menu it’s still there with still 50% of the episode unwatched it’s impossible to get rid of that episode until the next episode comes out and then you got to hope to hell when you watch the next episode it keeps track of where you are correctly so when you’re done watching the episode it doesn’t drop onto your continue watching list
this problem existed before Paramount plus and you would think these stinking engineers who write this code could fix this problem they could try calling the engineers who code for Netflix their software kicks ass compared to everyone else’s. but that’s just wishful thinking maybe they could contact Caltech and use coders who graduated from Caltech instead of MIT here’s a fact if you want to better education go to Caltech if you want to party and not learn much go to MIT. if you want an outstanding professor to teach you go to Caltech if you want a so so professor go to MIT. MIT is one of the most overrated colleges in the country they have great name recognition.
Bad…
CBS/Paramount + The audio-play by play calling is way off during the football games, it’s like ten seconds faster than the game being played, so you know what happens before the play happens…it’s like watching an old Godzilla-Japanese to English movie…its out of sink…Might start asking for a refund if they can’t do better than this, or just cancel, can’t watch the games like this…
I don’t even care about the streaming issues resolution or anything like that I watch most stuff on my phone so i don’t even care about all that. The only reason i signed up for Paramount Plus to begin with was for Star Trek. The Shows & The Movies. It’s really the only thing good they have to offer but I figured at least if they have everything Star Trek in one place i’ll pay the subscription fee. And yet if you live in another country outside of the US you can still watch Star Trek movies yeah i could get a VPN but that’s just another bill i don’t need. So they obviously don’t care about their customers & they keep playing games, putting the movies on the platform, then taking them off again what is that? They on some jerk s*** they want you to keep paying $10 or $12 dollars every month like Netflix or Hulu then offer you a fraction of the content. The reality is i could watch all of the stuff on every streaming services for free if i wanted i got skills like that but I try to do the right thing and support the service, then they do this kind of stuff? It’s not right. I mean they advertised & made it seem like you could watch everything Star Trek. It’s not like they have a bunch of other great content. there’s almost no black shows or movies, documentaries social historical etc. So i’m canceling my account & never looking back. I’ll just download the movies & keep it movin’ Eventually due to the lack of content Paramount+ will get rolled into a bigger platform, they don’t care about their customers but that’s not news to anyone. But Paramount Plus cannot compete with Netflix and Hulu so all they had to do was offer Everything Star Trek they own the rights to it all so it’s not like they couldn’t but they’re so greedy they couldn’t even do that. can’t wait to watch another bigger fish come along and swallow them up for pennies on the dollar that’s exactly what’s going to happen and they did it to themselves. They know it’s just a matter of time. Still had they not been so greedy & dropped a few quality documentaries every now and then who knows but now it is what it is.