CBS branding to be dropped from UK channels.

[This is UTV]

Its looking like CBS branded channels are about to be de-branded from the CBS name to the following bland channel names... 

CBS Reality to Reality (Back to the old days when it was just called Reality TV)

CBS Drama to RealityXtra

Horror Channel to Legend

CBS Justice to HorrorXtra (reduced hours 5pm-3am instead of the current 24hrs)

No news on what's going to happen to the CBS Catch Up Channels on-demand service? 

I believe there are European feeds of the CBS Drama and Reality channels, possibly CBS Action is still going in other countries, will these now lose CBS branding?

As for the UK channels, surely the days are numbered for them. Bland brand identities going forward, poor SD picture and it appears no new content for longer than anyone can remember.

CBS Drama showing the US version of Wheel of Fortune a while back was probably the strangest decision ever, if I recall it was on at 5:30pm and then after around 2 weeks disappeared without a trace. 
The CBS channels have previously put effort in when they showed Bad Girls, Footballers Wives and Mile High to some success. Bad Girls even aired on CBS Action as well as CBS Drama. 

Of course CBS Drama did have some success with the showings of Dallas and Dynasty but these are now long gone.

Any other highlights from the CBS branding era of the channels? 
Maybe the Zone branding will return one day, Zone Reality, Zone Thriller, Zone Romantica anyone?

[Rob]

Can't find anything online about this. Can you post a link to a source please?

[CillBill]

There are placeholder websites up for two of the channels

https://www.realityxtra.co.uk/
https://www.horrorxtra.co.uk/

[JetixFann450]

I always found it odd how Horror was never called "CBS Horror" but often alluded to the fact it was a CBS channel, so to see the name end up becoming "Legend", but the Xtra channel still being called Horror Xtra? Surely it should be called Legend Xtra, not Horror Xtra?

[Lyric W.]

...i dunno, it looks awkward.

[legend logo is a mock]

[Kunst]

It's not like the CBS branding made a lot of sense; it's like they were trying to look like the cool guys, but not getting there (since CBS is almost meaningless outside of the US), and it's not even "their" branding, since the management comes from AMC.

So,. yes, this move makes sense, especially for Legend, since it was hardly a Horror channel!

Even better would've to keep the Zone branding...

---

But there's a thing I don't like about this:

they could've found a better name for CBS Drama, and I realize Drama is already taken

[Rob]

[mdta]

With Paramount+ coming to the UK, as they own the CBS branding, they probably no longer wish to have the brand licensed, and potential confusion with that.

[Keith]

With Paramount+ coming to the UK, as they own the CBS branding, they probably no longer wish to have the brand licensed, and potential confusion with that.

Worth noting that Paramount as well as owning the current CBS channels in the UK also own Channel 5 and its set of channels. These new names do appear to be focusing on reality and horror, with drama and 'justice' being dropped.

It feels like Paramount may be trying to merge their CBS and 5 brands to remove potential overlaps. At risk of speculating I could easily imagine a '5' eventually prefixing these new channel names.

[JAS84]

That really makes no sense. If Horror is changing it's name to Legend, then Justice should be LegendXtra. Having HorrorXtra when Horror is gone is nonsensical.

[Dogorilla]

So I assume some of the channels will start showing different types of programmes? Otherwise I can't see why on earth CBS Justice would change its name to Horror Xtra.

[Brekkie]

Seems a bit odd as the CBS brand surely adds something and actually their channels do punch above their weight when you look at the ratings. They do seem the somewhat unloved corner of CBS Viacom Paramount 5 though.

[Rdd]

With Paramount+ coming to the UK, as they own the CBS branding, they probably no longer wish to have the brand licensed, and potential confusion with that.

Worth noting that Paramount as well as owning the current CBS channels in the UK also own Channel 5 and its set of channels. These new names do appear to be focusing on reality and horror, with drama and 'justice' being dropped.

It feels like Paramount may be trying to merge their CBS and 5 brands to remove potential overlaps. At risk of speculating I could easily imagine a '5' eventually prefixing these new channel names.

These channels are (at least at the moment) available in Ireland, and the Channel 5 brand won’t ever be used on channels available in Ireland. There’s a big division between the Channel 5 channels (not available in Ireland) and what I guess would historically have been referred to as “MTV Networks” channels (and I include Nickelodeon and Comedy Central under that ambit) which are available here. Of course these channels don’t fall really into either group, they are the old Chello Zone channels and were once upon a time part of UPC/LibertyGlobal and now managed by AMC.

As I said recently in another thread, I am not convinced they have long left for this world. If you buy the narrative that TV, perhaps with the honourable exceptions of live sport, news, and “event” programming is moving inexorably towards streaming/on demand, then channels almost entirely composed of repeats may be among the first for the block (I think older skewing childrens channels are in even greater danger) That was without knowing about this rebrand, and with that in mind, another possibility is that it is to remove the Paramount owned CBS brand, with a view to Paramount selling its interest in the channels in due course. 

Either way the timing coincides very much with the arrival of Paramount+.

[Brekkie]

As I said recently in another thread, I am not convinced they have long left for this world. If you buy the narrative that TV, perhaps with the honourable exceptions of live sport, news, and “event” programming is moving inexorably towards streaming/on demand, then channels almost entirely composed of repeats may be among the first for the block

Is an argument the opposite is true - people will search put new content on streamers and won't sit and watch back to back Judge Judy in the way they would with linear channel.

[Aplus1]

Either way the timing coincides very much with the arrival of Paramount+.

Likely that it also coincides with the end of a 10-year deal signed in 2012, when both CBS and Chello had different owners to the ones they have today.