Paramount all in on streaming, says SVP

Left: Dan Fahy, Paramount

Paramount is “leveraging its entire business into streaming”, a senior streaming exec at the company has said.

Speaking at the Connected TV World Summit, Paramount SVP of streaming Dan Fahy discussed the launch of SVOD Paramount+ at the end of June.

The SVOD will launch in the UK with 8,000 hours of content, including the high-profile original Halo and acclaimed movies such as Mean Girls. “For the first time it brings together an offer which, in this market, is largely unmatched,” Fahy says.

The service will have a leg-up when it launches thanks to a partnership with Sky in the UK, where all Sky Cinema subscribers will gain access to Paramount+ at no extra cost. The streamer has a similar relationship in France with Canal+, and Fahy says that the company will look to emulate these kinds of relationships in future markets. Paramount+ is set to launch in Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria in the second half of 2022.

In the UK, Paramount+ joins a market in which the former ViacomCBS already operates AVOD platform Pluto TV and the Channel 5 catch-up service My5. 

Despite already having a sizeable streaming presence in the UK, Fahy says that these services will be “complementary to each other,” and describes Paramount as having a “unique model” for the market. 

Fahy surmises: “For us streaming is an extension and an incremental move forward for our entire business.”

The exec also commented on the recent launch of Pluto TV in the Nordics, where it has merged with Viaplay-owned Viafree.

“We have been long-standing partners if Viaplay and over a period of time we had conversations with them to partner with us,” he says, adding that the relationship works with Viaplay managing ad sales and providing content to the platform.

Earlier in the day at Connected TV World Summit, research house Omdia revealed that the UK’s SVOD market is still set for growth in spite of the country’s cost-of-living crisis. Speaking at the event, Omdia senior director, Maria Rua Aguete, said UK consumers dealing with the cost of living crisis are actually tending to spend more on their streaming services, rather than less, as they prefer to cut other expenses other than their home entertainment in the face of rising costs.