Paramount seeking partners and planning a $500 million budget cut

Paramount, a leading company in the entertainment industry, is seeking partners for its streaming service, Paramount+. Bloomberg reports that Paramount, which owns CBS and MTV, aims to make its streaming business profitable and is actively looking for collaborations to achieve this goal.

At the shareholder meeting on June 4, 2024, the company’s leadership mentioned that their partnership bid is attracting significant interest from other industry players. Paramount also plans to cut expenses by $500 million and boost licensing revenue. These strategic moves are part of the company’s broader effort to strengthen its position in the highly competitive streaming market.

We still do not know who Paramount’s potential streaming partners are

Currently, there is little information about who Paramount’s potential partners might be. Cord Cutter News speculates that Comcast could be one of the companies in talks with Paramount. If this partnership materializes, it is likely that content from both Peacock and Paramount+ would be available on a single streaming app, offering a more extensive library to subscribers.

Paramount+ and Peacock together have about 105 million subscribers. This number is still less than Netflix’s 270 million subscribers and Disney+’s 111 million subscribers.

Paramount is also discussing a merger with Skydance Media, the company behind movie hits like Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and Apple TV’s Ghosted.

Users think streaming is becoming like Cable

When Netflix started the streaming revolution, it promised users a break from the constraints of cable television. Streaming was seen as a viable alternative to piracy, offering an ad-free experience and easier cancellation options.

However, with Paramount’s search for partners and the upcoming partnerships involving Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery, many users are beginning to wonder if streaming is becoming the new cable TV.

Nowadays, users often need to subscribe to multiple services to access a variety of content. To manage rising production costs, services like Hulu and Netflix now offer ad-supported subscriptions at lower prices, which resembles the traditional cable model.