How to Stream CBS in August 2026: Best Live TV Options and Pricing

If all you need is your local CBS station without a satellite dish or a cable box, the shortest path is the Paramount+ with Showtime plan, which delivers a 24/7 live feed of your local affiliate plus the on-demand library. That's the baseline. Everything above it is about how many simultaneous streams, how much DVR, and whether you want a weather backup.

The bare minimum: Paramount+ with Showtime

At $13.99 per month, this is the lowest-friction option for anyone who just wants the live CBS channel on their TV, phone, or browser. No contract, no equipment rental, no dish. The local broadcast runs live as it airs, and most primetime shows land on-demand right after they end. The catch: no real DVR capability for the live feed, and you're capped at the stream quality Paramount delivers. Minimalists who only care about the affiliate and the occasional UEFA Champions League match will be fine. Anyone running a multi-room household during football season will hit the limits fast.

The bundle play: DirecTV and Fubo

If you want CBS inside a full cable-style lineup, two names keep coming up.

• DirecTV leans on its 99% signal reliability claim and a feature called SignalSaver, which is supposed to switch to streaming if weather degrades the satellite feed. In practice that means if your dish loses signal during a storm, the stream keeps the game on screen. Worth something if you live in a market with bad weather, but you're still paying for a satellite package plus a streaming fallback.
• Fubo's 2026 plans advertise 1,000 hours of DVR and 10 simultaneous home streams. That's the play for a household where multiple TVs are running CBS at once — NFL on the big screen, a PGA feed on the tablet, a kid's show on the bedroom set. The monthly price is higher than Paramount+, and the channel mix matters more than the headline DVR number.

Neither bundle is a cord-cutter's dream. The real question is whether the extra channels and the multi-room setup justify the monthly premium over the $13.99 Paramount+ tier. Run the math against the number of TVs in your house before you commit.

What's actually on CBS in August 2026

The programming slate is dense, and outside of primetime repeats it's almost entirely live sports:

• FedEx Cup Playoffs. The closing rounds of the St. Jude Championship (August 15-16), BMW Championship (August 22-23), and TOUR Championship (August 29-30) all air live on CBS.
• BIG3. Playoffs and a celebrity game run August 15 in Dallas, with the championship and all-star game on August 22 in Charlotte.
• NFL preseason. Bengals at Eagles on Friday, August 28 at 8 p.m. ET draws full national coverage. Other preseason games air on local CBS affiliates depending on your market — check local listings before kickoff.
• UEFA Champions League. Paramount+ remains the primary home for every match, with CBS Sports carrying a major presence on traditional broadcast TV.

Bottom line: if you only need the network for the next six weeks of golf and basketball, the $13.99 Paramount+ with Showtime plan is the rational buy. If you need multi-room DVR and a weather-proof fallback for a full NFL season, price out Fubo and DirecTV before the September kickoff — the monthly gap adds up faster than most people expect.