Star Trek: Discovery was launched to be the flagship of CBS All Access, giving CBS a foothold in the growing market of streaming services. Today the network highlighted how the second season premiere of Discovery helped set a new milestone for the service.

Discovery helps set a new record for All Access

Today CBS All Access announced that the second season premiere of Star Trek: Discovery and the AFC championship game drove a record-breaking weekend for the streaming service. According to CBS, All Access added more subscribers in a single weekend than ever before, eclipsing the previous record set during the 2017 series premiere of Star Trek: Discovery by 72%. In addition, the weekend also set a new record for unique viewers.

“The return of our biggest original series hit, Star Trek: Discovery, and this weekend’s AFC Championship Game have propelled CBS All Access to new record-breaking heights,” said Marc DeBevoise, President and Chief Operating Officer, CBS Interactive. “CBS All Access’ growing content offering, including both exclusive original series and the expansion of live-event programming, continues to pay off with consumers, and we look forward to bringing them even more must-watch series and live events.”

Media analyst shows strong demand for Discovery premiere

Streaming services are generally not included in standard TV ratings, and most, including CBS, don’t tend to release specific viewership figures. However, media analysis company Parrot Analytics tracks interest in TV shows using their own (rather opaque) proprietary metric of “demand impressions” tracking search, social media, and other factors. And by their measurements, Star Trek: Discovery ranked 5th last week for digital originals in the USA.

How All Access stacks up versus other streaming services

To get some perspective on All Access in relation to the myriad of choices for streaming services, there’s a new report from TiVo, who publishes a quarterly Video Trends Report based on surveys done by a leading third-party survey service. The study for the fourth quarter of 2018 – released today – shows that CBS All Access is being used in 5.2% of the 69.3% of households that use a monthly streaming service. Of course, this ranks All Access well below giants like Netflix and Amazon, but not that far behind HBO Now and ahead of other niche services like Showtime (also owned by CBS) and Starz.

Star Trek: Discovery is available exclusively in the USA on CBS All Access. It airs in Canada on Space and streams on CraveTV. It is available on Netflix everywhere else. The second season debuted on All Access and Space on Thursday, January 17th, 2019, and on Netflix January 18, 2019.

Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news at TrekMovie.