As recently reported, Paramount+ is considering joining forces with another streaming service, and one of the names in contention is WBD’s Max. This is just the latest headline in a series of recent moves in the streaming industry toward consolidation. Paramount, amid its merger negotiations with Skydance, made clear it is interested in finding a streaming partner. Earlier, the company had floated the idea of combining with Peacock, but that has not materialized.
In fact, Paramount+ looks late to the party. Max announced a streaming bundle with Disney+ and Hulu, which, considering the total demand for all content on these platforms, would make the mega bundle a market leader, surpassing even Netflix. Not to be outdone, and conscious of the mounting price pressures for consumers, Netflix partnered with Apple TV+ and Peacock to launch the ad-supported “Streamsaver.”
As battle lines are drawn in the consolidation era of the streaming wars, is an alliance between Paramount+ and Max the most logical choice? Or are there more compatible platforms?
According to Parrot Analytics’ Content Panorama, 0.9% of titles (shows and movies) on Paramount+ are also on Max. Such a small overlap between these streamers is a good sign for the potential value to subscribers that a combination of the two platforms would bring. Combining the two platforms would unlock access to titles that subscribers to either individual platform would not have had. Contrast this with a platform like Amazon Prime Video which has substantial overlap with titles on Paramount+. Around one in five of the titles on Paramount+ are also available on Prime Video.
But catalog overlap is only one part of the picture. With Parrot Analytics Audience Solutions we can also look at the viewing path these platform audiences are taking. How many people who watch content on Paramount+ go on to watch shows on Max? This cross-platform measure of audience behavior is an even better gauge of how good of a fit the two platforms are.
We found that in May, 13.8% of viewers who watched a title available on Paramount+ went on to watch a show or movie on Max. To put this number in context, it is slightly higher than the share of viewers who went on to watch a title on Netflix (13.4%), which is impressive considering the sheer size of Netflix’s catalog alone would make it more likely that audiences find something to watch there.
Of the audience for titles on Paramount+, 11.8% went on to watch a title on Prime Video, showing that significant catalog overlap between these two platforms hasn’t necessarily translated to shared viewers.
While Max has a strong case for partnering with Paramount+, it was actually Hulu that had the most shared viewers with Paramount+ last month. “Shogun,” notably, was a top draw for viewers coming from Paramount+. Of the viewers who watched a title on Paramount+ in May, 16.3% went on to watch a title on Hulu, which points to robust shared audience behavior between these two platforms and another logical potential partner for Paramount+.
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