CBS's Video Streaming Service Now Offers Live TV In Over 60% Of The U.S.
Context & Ripple Effects
In mid-2015, CBS was one of the first broadcasters to stream its own live signal over the internet without a cable subscription, but rights clearances meant it could only do so city by city — hence the milestone of crossing 60% of the U.S. The related coverage frames how contested this territory would become: Hulu was already reporting that living-room viewing had climbed past 58% of its streams, while upstarts like Philo were building internet-only live TV on college campuses before expanding outward.
First-order effects
- CBS gains a direct-to-consumer revenue line in markets where its affiliates have signed off, letting it sell subscriptions to cord-nevers who never touch a cable bundle.
- Local CBS affiliates face a new bargaining position: their signal now reaches viewers through CBS itself, so retransmission-fee leverage starts to erode station by station.
Second-order effects
- Rivals read the 60% number as proof of demand for live-over-internet TV: Google pushed YouTube TV until it claimed 98% of US households, and Hulu followed with a live tier and a Live Guide rolled out across web, Roku, and Apple TV.
- Coverage percentage becomes the scoreboard metric for the category — every player now reports household reach rather than subscriber counts, pressuring slower broadcasters to clear rights or cede ground.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, live TV distribution decouples from geography entirely: carriage economics shift from per-subscriber affiliate fees toward platform-scale licensing deals, and the Nielsen finding that adults average nearly six hours of daily video ([[a:932045]]) keeps the prize worth fighting over.
- The endgame is a split pay-TV market — legacy bundles for sports-heavy households, cheap internet-native tiers like Philo's for everyone else — with broadcasters deciding whether they are content owners or distribution platforms.
The trend: Live television is steadily migrating from cable infrastructure to IP-delivered streams, with each broadcaster's cleared-market footprint becoming the new measure of competitive reach.