Paramount Global reported its fourth-quarter financial results on Wednesday with a streaming loss posted ahead of a sale of the studio to Skydance Media.
Competition is good, but Paramount doesn't have enough content to actually compete. I'm honestly shocked that they've kept their service running this long. I'm not going to subscribe to a dozen different platforms, and Paramount is never going to make the cut.
While I do agree competition is healthy. I don’t think every company should have their own streaming service, it’s not sustainable and means that each company needs to be churning out consistent content. It would make more sense if they just let their content be accessible through the platforms that would dedicate themselves to streaming.
I guess the issue is what would they be competing on and what would these premium features be? The more features you add, the less it becomes a place to watch things. That’s why you have Netflix offering games with your sub as well now. You can add multi-viewing parties and more experiences like bander snatch again, but at a certain point it just becomes a platform for general content versus shows and movies.
I’d argue studios shouldn’t own the channels at all. It’s hamstringing the industry, starving out movie theaters and preventing creatives from shopping their content to competitors.
I think it’s slowly moving backwards again. For example, I am starting to see some parmount+ content popping up on Netflix, though it’s about 6 months behind of when it’s released.
I use it almost entirely for showtime. There's definitely some decent things on paramount. But once you've seen them that's it. They don't really have a lot of new content.
And it seems to be an almost genre specific streaming service.
If I'm in the mood for a comedy or something light I don't even bother looking through paramount.
In Australia Paramount+ has the A-League broadcast rights, so I subscribe purely for that. It is very cheap by streaming standards here ($7 for the base tier with ads) and has a pretty good collection of films too. TV series are really where it struggles.
Yeah, but Star Trek, though. That's a "killer feature" for a lot of people.
Paramount+ doesn't work for shit, though. They keep inventing new and different ways to break. Even if you're really into the content they provide, they're so hard to work with and keep working consistently. Not like Netflix or Prime Video or Disney+ or whatever. (Hulu is... pretty janky as well. But anyway.)