Paramount Touts Paramount+, Dismisses New Sports Streamer

Paramount+ is starting to hit its peak. Touting positive streaming stats in a fourth-quarter earnings call Wednesday, Paramount CEO Bob Bakish talked up the company's Paramount+ streamer, while dismissing the upcoming combined sports platform from Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney and Fox. Amid rumors of a Paramount sale swirling, the company announced that direct-to-consumer revenue increased 34% year over year, narrowing streaming losses by $85 million to $490 million. Subscription revenue increased by 43%, driven by subscriber growth and pricing increases on Paramount+. The flagship streamer added 4.1 million subscribers in the quarter to reach 67.5 million, an increase from 2.7 million net additions in the third quarter. Paramount now expects to reach domestic profitability for Paramount+ in 2025, Bakish said during the earnings call. By reducing its overall DTC losses last year, Paramount hit peak streaming losses in 2022, one year ahead of schedule. Bakish credited that to the integration of Showtime into Paramount+ and a 40% year-over-year increase in hours spent on streaming. Left out? No problem? Earlier in the month, Fox, ESPN and WBD stunned the sports and TV worlds when the companies announced a new sports streaming joint venture arriving this fall. Paramount and NBCUniversal were notably absent from the deal, and Bakish doesn't seem to have a problem with that. On the call, he was quick to defend Paramount’s sports portfolio, saying that the company serves “true sports fans” through its MVPD (multichannel video programming distributor) and virtual MVPD partnerships. “There’s still a lot we don’t know about this service—things like price, packaging, consumer appetite,” said Bakish. “For a true sports fan, this product only has a subset of sports.” Bakish said the product is missing “half” of the National Football League and college properties while having “virtually no” soccer or golf. “That’s hard to believe that’s ideal, especially at the price points that have been speculated,” said Bakish. Disney Launching Standalone ESPN Streamer Following Surprise Combined Sports Service The fourth-quarter earnings call arrives just weeks after the company announced that it will lay off around 750 people—following the most-watched U.S. telecast of all-time with Super Bowl 58 on CBS. During the call, Naveen Chopra, chief financial officer of Paramount, addressed the staff reduction. “We’re also focused on using the collective power of Paramount Global to unlock synergies more broadly,” Chopra said. “This mindset enables headcount cost reductions, including the action we announced earlier this month, which eliminated nearly 750 domestic positions, or about 5% of our domestic employees, and represents approximately $200 million in annualized run rate cost savings, the majority of which will benefit TV, media and corporate expenses. We will continue to optimize our compensation expenses throughout the course of 2024.”

Streaming & OTT

With Paramount's Streaming Peaking, CEO Dismisses New Combined Sports Streamer

Paramount+ is expected to reach profitability in 2025

Mollie Cahillane

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Mollie Cahillane