Paramount Plus with Showtime
Paramount Plus and Showtime become ‘Paramount Plus with Showtime’
Paramount’s merging its Paramount Plus streaming service and premium Showtime channel, as first reported by The Hollywood Reporter. In an internal memo, CEO Bob Bakish announced the company’s rebranding its Showtime channel as Paramount Plus with Showtime.
Paramount confirmed the change in a post on Twitter, noting that the merger is “the natural next step in our evolution.” The company’s also planning to carry over “select” original content from Paramount Plus to the TV network, which could include shows like Halo and Yellowstone spinoff 1923.
Bakish says the move “brings uncertainty for the teams working on these brands and businesses” and that he’ll share more details in “the coming weeks.”
In addition to the possibility of layoffs, Deadline reports that some shows like Three Women (which was never aired), Let the Right One In, and American Gigolo could get axed as part of the consolidation. The specifics of what will happen to existing episodes of each series are unclear, but the report says that titles pulled from Showtime will be made available to take elsewhere.
As part of the change, the $9.99 per month premium Paramount Plus plan will adopt the same Paramount with Showtime moniker. It’s unclear how much the new tier will cost, as Paramount Plus already offers bundled plans with Showtime. While the essential plan with Showtime currently costs $11.99 per month, the premium plan with Showtime and local CBS networks costs $14.99 per month.
Paramount spokesperson Karen Shosfy tells The Verge that the company will announce new pricing information in the coming weeks.
“Now, with Showtime’s content integrated into our flagship streaming service, and select Paramount+ originals joining the linear offering, Paramount+ will become the definitive multiplatform brand in the streaming space — and the first of its kind to integrate streaming and linear content in this way,” Bakish says in the memo.
The move doesn’t come as much of a surprise, as Paramount started offering Paramount Plus and Showtime in a single app last August, and rumors about the change have been floating around for months. In November, Paramount chief financial officer Naveen Chopra also hinted at a potential price increase for Paramount Plus, citing rising subscription prices among “a number of competing services,” like Hulu, Disney Plus, and Netflix. The Showtime merge may be one way to squeeze subscribers.
