Showtime And Paramount+ To Merge
An article went up on THR two weeks ago about how Hollywood studios are kind of in a bind right now because they bet everything and the kitchen sink on streaming and, though it DOES still appear to be the future, it DOESN’T seem to be as profitable as the old, ad-supported, charge-a-million-bucks-for-cable system was. Interviewed experts differed in their opinions as to what should be done next, but the word “consolidation” was thrown around a lot, a word that tends to make my toes curl (and not in a good way).
If we’re talking about the kind of consolidation where studios merge their streaming channels independently and each own a third of the product, like what Hulu used to be, that’s fine. That’s better for everyone. But if we’re talking about a future where we have just two Hollywood movie studios to choose from because streaming was used as an excuse to merge everything, that’s obviously bad.
The announcement we’re talking about today, thankfully, is NOT the latter. Paramount wants more subscribers for its streaming service, and they’ve noticed a lot of their buzziest content, like Yellowjackets, is being made for their cable channel Showtime — so why not bring them both together? This is Paramount merging with itself.
The combined product will go by one name as both a streamer and a cable channel: henceforth we are to call it “Paramount+ With Showtime.” Though it describes exactly what you get, it’s a bit unwieldy to say. Should’ve hired a marketing team on that one.
Thanks to the merging of the two products, you will not have to pay extra to watch stuff like Yellowjackets anymore — all Showtime originals will debut on Paramount+ the same day. The cost also doesn’t appear to be changing: Paramount+ With Showtime will be $9.99, with a stripped-down version that just has the Paramount+ stuff (plus ads) offered for $4.99.
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