Paramount+ has been in a flurry of new territory rollouts across the globe, and now we’re seeing increased expansion in some of their European territories as well. To fill us in, we have our insider expert, entertainment lawyer Los Angeles at Blake & Wang P.A., Brandon Blake.
Two New Subscription Tiers
As of last week, Paramount+ now has launched new subscription tiers (premium and ad-supported) for its Swiss, German, and Austrian markets. This supplements the existing standard tier already available in those territories. Notably, Paramount+ also went on record to note that almost half of their DTC signups in Canada, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, and the United Kingdom are being driven by these non-standard plans. The appeal of the ad-supported basic plan is easy to see. The premium plans offer dedicated viewers perks such as 4K UHD, Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos, as well as streaming on up to four devices concurrently.
International Subscriber Growth
Paramount+ has seen immense subscriber growth in its international markets in the last few years, likely driven by its extensive (and rather recognizable) content library, which includes the Star Trek franchise and popular children’s hit SpongeBob.
We’ve seen many streamers look to expanded streaming tiers as a subscription growth driver over the past year, including Netflix’s notorious password-sharing crackdown, which spurred the introduction of ad-supported plans across many streaming platforms.
As for these three European markets, specifically, Paramount+ has already seen “record-breaking” uptake in those areas at the end of last year. With the new introductions, they hope to solidify this growth for these markets and grow their DTC segment.
Despite the recent rocky M&A activity at Paramount Global itself, Paramount+ is finally managing to carve its own space in the streaming market. Will this further expansion help to buoy that growth? It certainly seems like it.
Film and Television 