Blog: Paramount+

Protectionist measures that kept the streaming wars alive are being wound back. Licenced content is back in vogue, despite streaming TV being built on exclusive shows. Competitive tensions are cooling as entertainment looks to bundle services to combat the cost-of-living crisis, and super aggregators are making it easier for consumers to switch between streaming services like linear TV channels.

It is that time of year when MIDiA Research makes its annual predictions for 2024 . While there is a strong track record of accuracy, there will always be unforeseen opportunities and challenges that boost and buffet the music, video, and games industry over the next 12 months.

The HBO Original production of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us is solidifying the foundations of modern expectations for games video crossovers. With the games market increasingly saturated and seemingly dominated by a handful of games, companies that are acting on the cross-entertainment opportunity have a better chance of nurturing fandom of their IP and weather the current macroeconomic dynamics.

The film industry could be forgiven for thinking that the COVID induced disruption of the previous two years could be written off as an aberration in the long-term dominance of the live theatrical view experience.

Tomorrow Paramount+ will launch in the UK, a market of key importance in the direct-to-consumer (D2C) landscape due to its size, high discretion income, and high levels of TV and video consumption. As the market is so valuable, pre- D2C big bang moment long-term distribution deals have been hindering the likes of HBO Max from being able to launch in the UK, which underlines the success that the Paramount team has been able to pull off by launching in the UK.

Yesterday was a big day for ViacomCBS. The year of integration and uncertainty following the merger of Viacom and CBS in December 2019 has finally ended. The core rationale behind both key constituents of the National Amusements media empire to join together is now coming to fruition.