Paramount Plus Latest Stramer To Join Price Hike
It’s certainly been an interesting year to watch over what’s going on at Paramount. The latest in the never-ending saga of the Shari Redstone-controlled company includes a price increase of its streaming platform, Paramount Plus. While this doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with whatever’s going on in the upper floors, it’s certainly interesting timing.
Via Deadline, starting August 20, the Paramount Plus with Showtime tier will jump to $12.99 ($1 increase), while the lower-priced Paramount Plus Essential plan will go up to $7.99 ($2 hike). Paramount Plus Limited Commercial Plan will also increase to $7.99. These hikes will be applied to new subscribers starting August 20, and existing Paramount Plus with Showtime subs with their next billing date on or after September 20. Other Paramount Plus subscribers will remain at $5.99/month, or their respective annual price.
This follows Max’s recent price hike just ahead of the release of House of the Dragon, as well as Peacock’s, right before the Summer Olympics. But what does Paramount Plus have to offer? They have new seasons of TV coming out in the fall, as well as the NFL, but it’s probably not enough to lure in new subscribers and get them past the increase in pricing. The streamer has found its niche audience filled with Taylor Sheridan fans, mostly populated by Middle America’s older demos.
This is happening a few months before the biggest TV show for Paramount, Yellowstone, returns for the second half of its final season. However, as it’s well documented, it’s Peacock that has the first window of streaming exclusivity over the Kevin Costner-used-to-be-led show. A sequel series, that would debut directly on Paramount Plus, is in the works, but it’s not coming for at least another couple of years.
Are they going to ramp up spending? New seasons of Tulsa King and Lioness are coming in the fall. It’s also been just reported that Michael Fassbender will star in a spy thriller called The Agency, from co-writers Jez and John-Henry Butterworth. Joe Wright is directing the first two episodes.
This all feels like we’re heading towards an era of the Great Bundling. Some streamers, like Netflix+Peacock+Apple TV, or Max+Disney, have started to partner up. Paramount must be readying its own packaging, and it feels like it’s only a matter of time before they all collectively launch Streaming.com (that URL is currently owned by Prime Video), where you can sign up for any combination of streaming services for a lower price than the sum of each one individually.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
