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Paramount+ wants every new show to be a hit

The ViacomCBS-owned streaming service is doubling down on big-swing titles.
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Miller Mobley/Paramount+

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At Paramount+, every original series has a chance to be a star. That’s at least what the streamer hopes for.

To gain subscribers and attract advertisers, the less-than-a-year-old streaming service wants every new show to be a breakout hit as it leans further into originals.

  • “We’re looking for every show to be a tentpole show at this point in time while we’re building out the service,” Nicole Clemens, the president of original scripted series at Paramount+, said Tuesday at the Television Critics Association’s annual winter press tour. “We’re taking big swings to cut through.”
  • Some of those big swings include two series from Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan: The Yellowstone prequel series 1883 and Mayor of Kingstown, which were the first and second most-watched originals on the service this fall, respectively. Overall, ViacomCBS said in November that its streaming services, including Paramount+ and Showtime OTT, had nearly 47 million subscribers.
  • This spring, the company is banking on forthcoming shows like Halo, a TV adaptation of the video game franchise, and The Offer, a limited series about the making of the groundbreaking 1972 film The Godfather, to keep drawing viewers in.

Check the math. More than one in three new subscribers join Paramount+ specifically to watch originals and other exclusive programming, chief programming officer Tanya Giles told reporters. (Another big driver is live sports—the streamer just reported its most-streamed NFL season ever.) Meanwhile, nearly 80% of subscribers have watched at least one of the service’s new originals since the service debuted in March 2021, Giles said.

Zoom out: Paramount+ is playing catch-up with streaming giants like Netflix and Disney+, which have also found that original programming is key to attracting subscribers. Following that is another daunting challenge: How to keep audiences around.KS

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