Paramount+ Isn’t ‘Writing Off’ International Shows Anytime Soon as It Marks One Year of Global Originals (EXCLUSIVE)
Last June, Paramount Global pulled out all the stops at London’s spacey Outernet venue for its streaming launch in the U.K. The studio flew in 21 stars including Michelle Pfeiffer and Sylvester Stallone to pitch their Paramount+ originals to a wide-eyed audience. No expense, it seemed, was spared for the service’s splashy kick-off.
One year later, as Paramount Global sheds assets Stateside and offloads original programs in a bid to save money, that investment in international seems to be paying off. The company’s most robust signs of growth appear to be from its international streaming division, which has penetrated more than 45 markets to date, spanning Western Europe, Australia, South America and Canada. Currently, 85 local originals have been earmarked for the platform (some are already on the service, while others are in production or recently greenlit) — and those commissions aren’t going anywhere, according to top brass.
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“We’ve always been very cost conscious in the way that we’ve developed those projects and how many we develop, where we develop them and which phase we do them, and so we continue at the same pace that we had before,” Marco Nobili, executive VP and international general manager of Paramount+, tells Variety.
“We have produced the right amount of shows at the right cadence, and we have given them the marketing support to make them successful,” Nobili adds. “We don’t see any show that is below the parameter of what’s really needed to be written off at this stage.”
Paramount+ reached 60 million global subscribers at the end of Q1, while Europe “has had double- or triple-digit growth depending on the country,” Nobili highlights. Much of this comes down to greater exposure via a growing network of distribution partnerships with multi-market players like Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung and Sky, and more local partners such as Canal+ in France and Virgin in the U.K.
Paramount+’s European growth is also an interesting case study given the service launched alongside the roll-out of SkyShowtime, the company’s joint venture streaming service with Comcast that services markets that don’t already have Paramount+ in place. This includes the Nordics and Central and Eastern Europe as well as Spain. Given Paramount Global is in the process of integrating Showtime into Paramount+, it’s curious that the brand will still be prominent as a standalone in Europe, but Nobili assures that it comes down to strategizing around costs.
“[The SkyShowtime markets] all have their own language, their own culture, their own definition, and so you need to invest a good amount of cash flow into making a service successful,” says the Miami-based executive. “Partnering up with Sky has allowed us to invest a lot more content — because it’s not only the Paramount+ side of the house, but it’s also NBCU and Sky content — and then construct a service that allows this fresh cash flow to attack an additional set of countries.”
SkyShowtime will be in operation “for the foreseeable future,” says Nobili, who notes that the Showtime brand “continues to have very strong value and identification with the customer base as quality and premium content.”
As for the Paramount+ international offering, 45 of the 85 local originals on the service have been commissioned out of Europe, with highlights including Germany’s “The Chemistry of Death” and the U.K.’s “The Ex-Wife” and “Flatshare” (pictured above).
“On average, 70% of their viewership comes from outside the origin country,” says Nobili. “That proves that these titles are traveling across the countries. From an economical standpoint, they’re a great machine to create viewership and engagement for us.”
Meanwhile, though certain U.S. shows from Paramount+ may be looking for new homes outside the service, Nobili says the studio’s own streamer is the “priority” overseas, “because that’s what we need and want to grow.” So, while a big original like “Yellowjackets” used to be available on Sky, the hit series’ new home is very much Paramount+. Of course, that’s not to say there isn’t a flexible approach to the licensing of other types of shows, Nobili quickly adds.
“There are some shows that we’ve decided to put on pay-TV channels with a certain window versus our own streaming service,” says Nobili. “There are reality shows that we’ve stacked on Paramount+ and released on a weekly basis on pay TV.”
When asked how Hollywood strike action is impacting the international strategy — that is, is there more of a focus on overseas content now that U.S. production has come to a virtual standstill — Nobili insists that Paramount Global has been “well-prepared” for the strike and that there’s a “good amount of wiggle room to manage through it.”
“I would say international content is certainly something that allows you even more growth capabilities along the way, and we do have big expectations for some of these titles — not only in the international market, but also in the U.S. market,” says Nobili. “There is a very generous amount of content coming through the international pipeline that is certainly going to play a big role for us.”
Paramount Global could potentially be hosting one of the last glitzy premieres in London featuring American talent for some time if an actors strike is called by SAG-AFTRA on Wednesday night. Zoe Saldaña and Nicole Kidman are expected to attend a Paramount+ premiere on Tuesday evening for Taylor Sheridan spy thriller “Special Ops: Lioness” at yet another glamorous location — the Tate Britain.(The show also stars Morgan Freeman, who isn’t set to attend.)
Sheridan’s shows, which are the backbone of Paramount Global’s content offering, play extremely well overseas, says Nobili. “Yellowstone” and the Stallone-fronted “Tulsa King” are consistently “number two and number three in our top titles across all of Europe everywhere,” the executive adds.
Paramount Global execs are betting that the U.S. slate, combined with a raft of international shows, will set the streamer up to weather further strike action.
“We have a lot of international content and some of these shows are starting only in 2024 and going into the second quarter, so we do have a good amount of runway to play with,” says Nobili.
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