Yahoo Finance Paramount+ Is Raising Prices
Without a buyer, Paramount is raising funds another way: a Paramount+ price hike.
The streamer’s top tier, Paramount+ with Showtime, is increasing its monthly rate by $1 to $12.99 per month. Its ad-supported tier, the Paramount+ Essential plan, will increase by $2 to $7.99/month for new subscribers only. (Existing ad-supported Paramount+ members will remain at their current $5.99/month price.) The streamer’s legacy “Limited Commercial Plan” will increase by $1 to $7.99 for current subscribers — it’s no longer available to new subs anyway.
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The new pricing will take effect on August 20, 2024 for all new Paramount+ customers. Existing Paramount+ with Showtime subscribers will see the increase on their next billing date on or after September 20.
The last Paramount+ price hike took effect on June 24, 2023. That was when Paramount+ merged with Showtime. Happy Anniversary, basically.
The Paramount+ library includes shows like “Mayor of Kingstown,” “Lawmen: Bass Reeves,” “Knuckles,” “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” “Tulsa King,” and “Frasier,” as well as movies like “Bob Marley: One Love,” “Mean Girls,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” and “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.” There are also lots of kids shows from its Nickelodeon brand, including “Paw Patrol” and “SpongeBob Squarepants.”
“The Chi,” “Fellow Travelers,” and “Yellowjackets,” are a few of the original series on the Paramount+ with Showtime tier. The brand’s “Dexter” prequel series premieres in the fall. That’s also when the NFL on CBS returns to the platform.
The Paramount+ Essential plan does not include a subscriber’s local live CBS station (the NFL on CBS and UEFA Champions League are available via separate live feeds); Paramount+ with Showtime does.
There was almost a much-larger change for Paramount+ recently — perhaps a sale or even a closure.
Shari Redstone, who controls Paramount through her National Amusements, Inc. (NAI) company’s voting power, walked away from a deal with Skydance’s David Ellison with two minutes left on the clock (literally). The main reason that arrangement (which would have seen Paramount Global, in turn, buying Skydance) fell apart was because the Ellison camp would not agree to protect Redstone from the shareholder lawsuits that were sure to follow. The agreement in place was to benefit Redstone and her family’s trust, and not so much the Paramount Global common stockholder.
Paramount Global and its “Office of the CEO” structure (it has three, yes three, CEOs) is actively seeking a streaming partner for Paramount+. It may be hard to find a suitor for its core streaming service — or really, for any of its parts — after the way Skydance Paramount (our theoretical merged name) went down. FAST service Pluto TV has also been on the sales block for months, a source told IndieWire (a Paramount spokesperson denied that). Even the Showtime brand may still be sold, which would of course have major ramifications for Paramount+ with Showtime.
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