Sunday night's interview with Princess Meghan and Prince Harry's Oprah Winfrey, in which she dropped numerous bombshells about her departure from the royal family, was a huge hit on CBS News, drawing 171 million viewers, more than twice as many as last week's Golden Globes, and sparked a huge amount of Twitter The show sparked a lot of chatter on Twitter

The interview with Meghan and Harry was also a draw for Paramount Plus, ViacomCBS' new streaming service, which carried the interview live on local stations The key word, however, was "live," and it disappeared from Paramount Plus as soon as it finished airing on CBS

I am baffled by this mountain of missed opportunities--which highlights the lackluster launch we noted in our review of Paramount Plus

Judging from Twitter, many people signed up for a free trial of Paramount Plus to watch the interview Many of them were unaware that the interview, which aired from 8:00-10:00 PM ET, was only available live and not on demand Disappointed users soon realized that the interview was nowhere to be found on Paramount Plus A search for "Oprah" or "Meghan" yielded no results

Instead, those who wanted to watch Meghan and Harry's interview on demand a few hours later or the next day could go to CBScom, where it was streaming completely free (with ads)

I find it seriously odd that CBS would have such a valuable asset and not use it to bolster the launch of its streaming service It would be like Disney Plus launching their service with one episode of "The Mandalorian" and then dropping it a few hours later

Apparently, there are rights issues with the contract the network signed with Winfrey's Harpo Productions According to the Wall Street Journal, CBS paid between $7 million and $9 million for the licensing of this special (Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were not paid for their appearances) Advertisers also paid a premium to air commercials during the broadcast; Variety reported that Harpo retained streaming rights to the special Presumably the company plans to sell them elsewhere, such as Netflix (with whom Harry and Meghan have a production deal)

Paramount Plus can celebrate just a bit, as the promise of live-streaming the interview likely prompted a significant number of sign-ups However, this number could have been much larger Not everyone will be able to watch the event live Harry and Meghan were trending on social media all morning If only Paramount Plus had been able to capitalize on that

Even if Paramount Plus could not acquire the streaming rights to Meghan and Harry's interview, there was still time to prepare something for the inevitable wave of curious subscribers

Make a quick one-hour documentary about the two, or license one of those awful Harry and Meghan TV movies Just something to keep the free trial users interested and watching; I don't think "NCIS" or "Criminal Minds" or "Frasier" would work

Interviews aren't the only thing oddly lacking at Paramount Plus This weekend, "Coming 2 America" premiered on Amazon Prime Video The sequel to Eddie Murphy's classic comedy was produced by Paramount and sold to Amazon after a coronavirus outbreak delayed its theatrical release in August

Perhaps at the time, ViacomCBS only wanted Amazon's big money to recoup its film production costs, and Paramount Plus was still just a blur in the eyes of executives

But these head-scratching gaps show a clear lack of forethought in the streamer's debut last week Paramount Plus rose from the ashes of CBS All Access without a blockbuster original or franchise film They announced many projects, but the big titles on their start date were a "Sponge Bob" movie and the revival of "The Real World"

With so many streaming services out there, newcomers have to take every chance to stand out And Paramount Plus failed