We are going 5 years into Paramount+’s existence in the next phase of the streaming wars. Netflix became the ultimate winner in terms of subscriber numbers, with Paramount+ 4th worldwide behind Prime Video and Disney+, but the next battle is about much more than subscriber growth: watchtimes and engagement.
Previously, Wall Street and many investors pivoted from the “get the most subscribers” tagline to focusing on financial stability while lowering churn. Netflix has over 325 million subscribers worldwide, yet YouTube is its biggest competitor in terms of engagement.
Nielsen tracks how many people are watching/engaging with a specific service on their TVs/connected devices, and shares this publicly through The Gauge. Now, it’s worth noting that this percentage doesn’t reflect all devices on which you can access services other than through a TV, but it gives you a good sense of which services they’re watching. YouTube has over 12.7% share of TV viewers, Netflix has 9%, Disney has 4.7% while Paramount has 2.5% with Paramount+ and Pluto TV. Peacock and WBD are behind with 1.7% and 1.5% respectively.
David Ellison, as eager as he is to get all of Warner Bros. Discovery despite Netflix earning a winning bid (say what you want about it, Netflix + WB just because they have more Oscar noms than 0 from Paramount or won’t have the influence of the Ellison’s doesn’t mean everything will be peachy, same thing applies if PSKY + WBD happens), and Dana Goldberg should be worried about this stalled growth.
Yes, UFC will give them a boost in engagement, but it needs more than just sports to improve its chances to compete at this stage in the streaming wars. Though the question is, how will they achieve this?
For one, they will need to increase content production, aka spend more. Or do they? Paramount still has new content released on their cable networks, at least not as they used to. Paramount has already started scaling back content production for its networks while planning to “revitalize” them.
Phase 1 is currently underway, with them planning to sell a minority stake/partnership in MTV. They plan on launching new music programs for Paramount+ and other projects. It will be interesting to see how it will truly pan out, especially after canceling their long-running clip show, Ridiculousness.
But what’s not clear is the future of the rest of the network portfolio. Comedy Central consists only of The Daily Show, which is big on social media for its left-leaning views (in contrast to what the new CBS News is trying to be), and South Park. It has no live-action sitcoms in production, and they haven’t been consistent with the stand-up specials, mainly because Netflix poached their talents one by one. Nickelodeon has also been limited in popularity because it has remained on cable rather than expanding to reach an audience that has since shifted from cable to YouTube and Netflix. Don’t even ask the status of networks like Paramount Network, CMT, Smithsonian Channel, and others.
The reason I mentioned these networks is that, for the past few years that Paramount+ has been around, Paramount has kept the latest season of a cable show from ever reaching the service until after a year and a half since the season finale. (That has since been shrunk to around 6 months) This could be because of how Paramount handled its contracts with the actors and producers on the show for digital distribution. Remember, residuals exist, and media companies are trying so many tactics to keep all streaming revenues to themselves, which is why the 2023 strikes occurred and shifted the streaming wars even further from being just a subscriber number game.
I’ve said this here a couple of times, and the problem is that many of those cable shows could have helped diversify Paramount+'s audience. To quote myself, “Pushing Nickelodeon outside the cable bubble and having more presence on YouTube, Paramount+, and Netflix, and bringing back more live events to MTV and Comedy Central, like Unplugged and Comedy Central Presents, and streaming them on Paramount+ can help.” In the end, it’s not about not getting the audience at all; it’s about trying to get them and entice them to watch similar content on P+.
Outside of cable content, they need to think outside the box about what a hit can be on streaming. That’s where Dana Goldberg comes in. Her expertise in big hits at Netflix can easily translate over to Paramount+. Their social platforms should be a simple way to give non-P+ users a taste of the shows and get them to subscribe to the whole thing.
Paramount has numerous talents that are available to make great hits. Money should not be the issue with Ellison, as long as he stops trying to make a hostile bid without raising the price. Paramount+ has excellent content, but it needs more buzzworthy content to quickly take the spotlight from HBO Max once it’s a part of Netflix, before Peacock gets a chance when Taylor Sheridan makes a Yellowstone 2.0 show.
In the end, promotion is key. Many media companies, notably Paramount, had been gutting their marketing departments, which led to many of their movies bombing at the box office last year. If you can’t get the audience to know your content exists, then you’ll have problems getting clients back. Paramount+ has some leverage to reenter mass marketing through its TikTok content (via Oracle) and more.
Doing all of this will increase engagement and watch times on Paramount+, making them a stronger competitor in this Netflix-HBO and supersized Disney+ world. It's headed in the right direction, but needs more clarity and more of a push. Of course, this will cost a lot of money. Gotta lose some to make some, right(...)?