By the end of the year, “Top Gun: Maverick” will be available on Paramount+, according to Bob Bakish, who also praised the recent Walmart deal.
Will Paramount Global end Showtime’s streaming offering in order to strengthen its primary Paramount+ offering? The CEO of Paramount, Bob Bakish, declined to provide a clear response to that query when speaking at a Goldman Sachs conference on Wednesday. However, he did mention that there are ongoing discussions.
Although Bakish called the report a “rumour” that he believed came from conversations the company had with a distributor, he conceded that it is a conversation that the company should have. The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Paramount was debating whether to end the standalone Showtime service.
Bakish replied, “Quite honestly, if we weren’t having that talk, you should fire all of us.” Even though we haven’t decided to do anything on a certain day, we should still have that chat.
He continued, saying that the firm also wanted to satisfy pay-TV distributors, “I guarantee you media will continue to evolve, I guarantee you our product line will continue to evolve and get better.”
In order to allow users who pay to both services to access all of their programmes through a single user interface, Paramount made the decision last month to integrate Showtime programming into the main Paramount+ app. The standalone Showtime app is still accessible for the time being, though.
Along with original series like Yellowjackets and Billions, Showtime also boasts a library of films.
Bakish also discussed the company’s other top streaming initiatives, praising the recent Walmart partnership as something that will “definitely benefit Q3” and result in a “good subscriber uptick” despite the lack of significant promotion.
Bakish remarked of the Walmart relationship, “I think everybody wanted that deal,” adding that Walmart chose Paramount because CEO Doug McMillon claimed, “We are like them.”
According to our content, we are not a coastal firm, we didn’t win many Emmys, and we speak for the general public, said Bakish. They believed that our information related to them extremely well.
The CEO of Paramount also stated that he anticipates raising Paramount+ costs over time, with the ad-free tier probably seeing a price increase before the ad-supported tier.
The truth is that prices will increase, he declared. We’re at a decent value right now, so I don’t want to be the most costly or the leader in pricing. We’ll position ourselves behind others who are rising prices. We will gradually increase our prices, much like Disney and Netflix.
The price of the Disney+ ad-tier will remain the same as it is now, but the price of the ad-free tier will increase, according to a recent announcement from Disney. Executives from Warner Bros. Discovery have also hinted that they would increase pricing following the merger of Discovery Plus and HBO Max.
Additionally, Bakish addressed the principal controversy surrounding Top Gun: Maverick. The Tom Cruise action film, which had a blockbuster run at the box office, will be on Paramount+ before the year is through, according to the CEO, raising the possibility that it will increase the streaming service’s Q4 subscriber figures.