CBS have become the first US TV network to launch a dedicated streaming TV service that will let viewers watch live TV content, as well as catch-Up and full seasons of hit shows on-demand.

But there is a cost involved with the service, which is called CBS All Access and will set back users $5.99 monthly. On offer will be live streaming of local CBS TV stations in 14 areas that include New York, LA, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Miami, Denver, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore.

Also available is on-demand streaming of 15 hit shows such as NCIS, CSI, and The Good Wife, along with thousands of episodes of classic TV shows such as Star Trek and Twin Peaks.

Although some CBS content is available for streaming elsewhere such as Hulu and Netflix, CBS All Access will be the first time that a bigger catalog of CBS shows can be accessed.

The service will be welcome to cord cutters along with those that are looking to dump expensive cable and satellite for a more ‘a la carte’ service, and makes for a good week after cable giant HBO also just revealed plans to offer a streaming service in 2015.

The big news about this service is the offer of streaming live TV. Previously those wishing to dump cable have had to endure waiting a day (or even several), before seeing TV shows. The other big news (and also bad news) is that live sports streaming of major events including NFL will not be available at this time.

Speaking about the new service in a statement, president of CBS Television Stations, Peter Dunn said, “With video consumption habits changing all the time, it is very important that we continue to provide the best local news, entertainment and sports via a service like CBS All Access. Television stations have been the fabric of local broadcasting for 75 years, and today’s announcement is part of paving the way for the next 75.”

The service can be accessed through the CBS All Access website as well via the iOS and Android apps.

Looking to become one of the major names in the UK’s TV market alongside their position in their primary market, British telecommunications giants EE have announced an upcoming ‘multi-device TV catchup’ service to rival that of pay-TV competitors BT, TalkTalk and Sky.

With the belief that they will not be focusing so much on free-to-air services such as YouView or Freeview Connect, the new EE TV service is aimed to draw customers into the telecommunications package as a whole (with the subscription offered free to fixed broadband customers, and £9.99/month for mobile subscribers) as well as retaining existing customers with the new package extension.

The service of EE TV is noted as being one strictly for rebroadcasting content of others for the foreseeable future with as little money spent on the platform’s content as possible, with most coming from free-to-air networks and catch-up services , joined by a number of external apps such as YouTube, amongst others, with access to certain content naturally dependent on individual subscriptions.

Despite aiming to go for the mainstream audiences, there is currently a sub-par level available, with Wuaki being cited as the only ‘recognisable’ OTT-based brand upon the recent launch of the set-top box service (on hardware provided by French company Netgem), whilst major commercial-based catch-up services ITV Player and 4OD are missing from the line-up.

Benefits of the new brand, though, are noted as including four-screen simultaneous HD streaming with individual pause and playback for each, along with resumable app and PVR viewing across all compatiable devices on Android or iOS. Other features noted by the company include being ‘twice as powerful’ as competing boxes, HBB-TV full compatibility, dual-band Wi-Fi, and a 1TV hard drive.

At the unveiling of the product, which currently has an unspecified release date, EE head of marketing Pippa Dunn said of the new platform and its features: “We pay large amounts of money to watch TV in another room and even more to watch recorded TV. We didn’t want to be constrained by TV thinking, we are mobile people.”

Sylvain Thevenot, EE’s ‘Home’ division marketing director, noted: “FreeView Connect have not published a specification, so it’s difficult to comment. But from what we can read, it will be based on HBB-TV and this is based on HTML5 so I think we’re heading in the right direction.”

EE chief executive Olaf Swantee summarised: “Today we’re announcing the most advanced TV service the UK has ever seen. How, where and when people watch TV and movies is changing, and mobile technology is driving that change. As the UK’s biggest and fastest network, with more than 25 million customers, we have unrivalled insight into people’s changing viewing habits. It’s helped us create a service that has mobile at its heart, and makes the TV experience more personal than ever before. With EE TV, not only can you watch different streams of live and recorded content, on multiple screens simultaneously, but your mobile becomes the remote. This gives each viewer the chance to watch, queue and view what they want, when they want. It’s a completely new way to enjoy your favourite programmes, films and internet content.”

The EE TV platform will if nothing else offer a new name for British consumers to choose between for their TV provider options, so aside from how it will perform in the market with a slight limitation on content but strength in features, the only major question left is whether will this new service from EE continue the company’s use of American actor Kevin Bacon in their advertising campaign? Wait, don’t answer that:

The BBC iPlayer’s long-held presence has been a familiar one to almost all British internet users – hosting almost all of the BBC’s content from the past week and making it available for on-demand streaming.

Except that the ‘week’ part will now be scratched out in favour of ‘month’ as part of new upgrades to the service from the public service broadcaster.

Running through BBC iPlayer and BBC iPlayer Radio, the changes will allow viewers to catch up on BBC programming over a 30 day-period following original air date, as opposed to a previous 7 day-stretch.

The BBC’s director general Tony Hall summarised: “BBC iPlayer pioneered online viewing. It is recognised as not just the first, but the best service of its type in the world. It offers amazing value. But we want to go further. That’s why we began reinventing iPlayer earlier this year with a brand new redesign and features. Extending the catch-up window to 30 days now makes the best value on-demand service even better. We have a fantastic autumn schedule and the public will now have more opportunities to watch the shows they love.”

With the changes set to accommodate upcoming shows including Peaky Blinders and The Fall (TV), and Just a Minute and The Archers (radio), online viewers will see the new feature introduced immediately with any new content put up, although shows already online (including those available for a period larger than seven days) are set to be unaffected, as will the BBC’s podcasting services, which are a separate division that already in some areas aims for long-held content.

A delayed reaction from a planned summer launch, the BBC’s efforts (which co-incided with an announcement of their Top 20 ‘most-requested programmes’ on iPlayer for this year so far through to August, led by a Sherlock episode with over 3.6 million hits) will certainly increase the quality of service on paper, but will they follow through on that potential with the implementation?

British company Virgin Media, in their continuing efforts to challenge regional pay-TV powerhouse Sky, have revealed an update to their user interface on their TiVo platform that will better incorporate content recommendation and discovery options.

Claimed to be the first system update for close to four years, the new on-screen look of Virgin Media TiVo carries a number of ‘extensive visual enhancements’ (including a change from a red to ‘plum’ colour scheme and ‘refined fonts’), and will seek to improve the user experience whilst retaining similarities to the format they are familiar with.

Part of that familiarity will be in the service’s electronic programme guide (EPG) which retains its previous ‘grid’ format, with the added ability of allowing viewers to go backwards in the schedules to view now on-demand content.

Following in the footsteps of Sky, Virgin Media will also be introducing ‘predictive search’ functions to be a part of their newly-emphasised ‘content discovery’ direction, which also includes show recommendations based on viewing habits complete with optional background ‘automatic downloads’, and groupings for downloaded content such as TV/Radio, Kids, and Movies, amognst others.

Hardware-wise, the update roll-out is designed to ensure that TiVo runs faster and with higher-resolution imagery than ever before, combined with an upgrade to HTML5-based apps as opposed to flash, with more apps becoming available through a store carriage agreement with Opera.

Also updating their mobile ‘TV Anywhere’ platform in line with the TV improvements starting between now and the end of the year (with 28 October cited as the main ‘launch date’ for the most boxes in the UK), will .

While HBO‘s most popular and famous show remains in that status presumably for quite a long time, one of the shows regularly competing to be the network’s second-best production has now shown its last episode.

Vampire drama True Blood aired on Sunday (24 August) to an audience of 4 million viewers for the closure of both season 7 and the show as a whole, though the figure is noted as being on ‘preliminary ratings’ at present.

The numbers are also not yet a ‘true reflection’ of the show’s performance as a whole based on their own ratings, which wait a week to tally up all encore, DVR/on-demand, and HBO Go views before arriving at a total, which for this season has been 9.4m per episode. The final installment is more than likely to beat that based on first-instance TV ratings, to which only the pilot episode can match breaking the 4m barrier.

The night of the finale is noted as having competition from this year’s MTV Video Music Awards show and NFL preseason games in american football.

While it is not near their season 3 peak of 13 million weekly viewers across all platforms, the show has consistently remained near the top of the list when ‘current HBO shows’ spring to mind… until now.

HBO programming director Michael Lombardo, had previously stated his wish for the show’s legacy to be rewarded with a ‘creative high’ in a strong final episode, recently saying of previous years: “It just felt like we had reached a place where the storytelling was hitting a wall.”

Whilst many reacting to the show’s ending do not believe that it did do itself justice, the show is now completely over and the product as a whole will be what the history books judge first… but what will that overall verdict be?