‘Tis the season for quarterly earnings reports, and now it’s Paramount Global’s turn to reveal how its various streaming services did in the fourth quarter of 2022. The company’s flagship streaming service Paramount+ grew by 9.9 million subscribers in Q4 to come in just shy of 56M total customers, up from the 46 million that the company reported last quarter. This represents a 21.74% increase over Q3 and a 70.73% increase year-over-year.
Across Paramount+, SHOWTIME, BET+, and Noggin, Paramount added 10.8M new direct-to-consumer customers, bringing its current total to 77 million.
Pluto TV, the company’s free ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) and free ad-supported TV (FAST) service, now claims nearly 79 million monthly active users. That’s an increase of 6.5M over the 72 million it claimed in Q3, and a year-over-year growth of 21.8% from the 64 million it reported having in the Q4 of 2021.
Those numbers are impressive, but they’re still well behind some of the biggest streamers in the industry. Netflix most recently reported having over 230 million global users, while Disney’s various streaming services now claim a combined 234 million subscribers around the world.
Customers who have not subscribed to Paramount+ might want to strongly consider doing so soon, before price increases. Company executives have signaled an increase is coming, and could arrive before the end of 2023.
If the price of Paramount+ does increase, users will have Taylor Sheridan to thank, at least in part. Series which Sheridan helped to create have been big business for Paramount+, and his new crime drama “Tulsa King” starring Sylvester Stallone helped drive the biggest single-day subscriber increase in the service's history in November. More Sheridan-created shows are on the way to the service, potentially including a new “Yellowstone” spinoff starring Matthew McConaughey.
“Top Gun: Maverick” was likely also a big driver of new subscriptions when it launched on Paramount+ on Dec. 22. One of the top movies of last year, “Top Gun: Maverick” broke records for the service when it debuted, and was a content centerpiece of Paramount+’s launch in France at the end of 2022.
All that incredible content helped Paramount+ see the largest growth in household penetration of any streaming service last year. Paramount+ jumped from being used in 11% of households to 17% in 2022.
By far the biggest news of the quarter for Paramount+ was the announcement that it would be incorporating content from SHOWTIME onto its platform in the coming months. The service will be rebranded as “Paramount+ with SHOWTIME” when Showtime is integrated into the Premium tier of Paramount+.
Paramount Plus
Paramount+ is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 40,000+ TV show episodes from BET, CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr. and more. The lineup includes “1883,” “Tulsa King,” “Star Trek: Discovery,” Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants,” and “PAW Patrol.” Subscribers can watch the NFL, college football, The Masters, college basketball, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa, Serie A, and NWSL. The service also offers the option to watch your live CBS affiliate. The upgraded ad-free package includes premium movies and shows from Showtime.