With its streaming operations going through scrutiny as 2024 will get below method, Paramount International continues to pursue a diversified strategy to distributing its flagship, Paramount+.
Pam Kaufman, President and CEO, Worldwide Markets, International Client Merchandise & Experiences, and Lisa Kramer, President, Worldwide TV Licensing, elaborated on the technique throughout an look Wednesday at NATPE International in Miami.
Paramount CEO Bob Bakish, who rose via the ranks on the firm as a global exec, has evinced the potential of “exhausting bundles” in lots of territories. Along with these offers with Canal Plus and different operators, the corporate is promoting Paramount+ direct to shoppers and likewise seeking to create “model hubs” by way of licensing offers in locations the place P+ will not be in any other case out there.
Through the session, Kramer introduced two new branded hub companions: Faucet Digital Media Ventures within the Philippines and JioCinema in India. Faucet DMV will create a Paramount+ model extension for licensed Paramount content material on its SVOD service, Blast TV, which is scheduled to launch in June. The setup follows comparable ones by way of Cosmote in Greece and Streamz in Belgium, with extra within the works.
Kramer referred to as the branded hub mannequin “our thrilling new strategy to licensing,” with a concentrate on making Paramount+ out there in markets the place it’s not in any other case accessible. The service is “absolutely embedded” in associate firms’ conventional person interfaces.
Content material licensing, Kramer added, supplies “on the spot profitability and money circulate” at a time when all streamers are scrutinizing their bills. Since rolling out the primary hubs final June, Paramount has had “nice conversations” with different potential companions, she added.
Kaufman added that “content material ubiquity, placing our content material everywhere in the world, is vital for us.” To that finish, the hubs are “such an vital a part of our mannequin” for rolling out Paramount+ globally. As a result of she additionally oversees shopper merchandise, Kaufman stated there’s extra upside when new markets come on-line.
Whereas Paramount+ ended the third quarter of 2023 with greater than 63 million subscribers, it continues to offer some Wall Streeters pause, given the corporate’s debt obligations and the operational price of streaming. Paramount International has not set a goal date when it expects to succeed in profitability in streaming, a milestone eagerly anticipated by traders, although Bakish stated final November the corporate is “advancing within the path” to that time.
Streaming is one ingredient in current reviews regarding Paramount’s non-executive chairwoman, Shari Redstone, who leads Nationwide Amusements, the proprietor of almost 80% of Paramount’s voting shares. Deadline and different media shops have reported that Redstone has talked with Skydance Media chief David Ellison and others doubtlessly desirous about buying the corporate or a few of its belongings.
