Remember Paramount+, originally CBS Interactive, which rebranded back in March? Well, it's still in the streaming race, and its trend is still very positive. In fact, it's starting to see the big guys.
Looking at net revenue in the U.S. so far this year, HBO Max and Disney+ have complete command of streaming, earning more than $300M of net revenue in the U.S. so far this year, according to our estimates. Behind them is Hulu, with a modest haul of $120M followed by Paramount+, which earned $44M so far this year. Starz, Peacock, and discovery+ round up the rest of the list.
Do you see the pattern here? What differentiates Disney and HBO from the rest? Original content, which is really the name of the game for streams at this point. If you've been reading the newsletter for a while, you've heard me say that more than once.
Paramount, however, is not a newbie in the space of original content, which is why we see it growing. Paramount+ is the latest entrant to this group, and unlike discovery+, it's got the ability to put up a good fight.
That's why its revenue has been soaring since it rebranded in march.
Month over month growth has been positive 4 of the five months it's been available under its new name, and one of those months saw a 33.7% growth. Not bad!
According to our estimates, August saw the most revenue in a single month for the streamer, earning $7.5M in net revenue (that's after they give Apple and Google their fees), a 4.3% increase over July's haul.
I expect the numbers for September to be even higher because of the release of Paw Patrol at the end of August. While the movie targets kids (aka parents), it's the kind of content that's necessary and competes with Disney directly.
Content is king. As cable continues to move to apps, I expect to see streamers fighting over market share fiercely. The list of streamers fighting isn't long, but it's busy enough that for viewers, this means both loads of content but also a mess of apps and subscriptions...
Let's see what kind of spin the new rules regarding 3rd party payments add to this race.
Fallout, a new TV show based on the popular game series with the same name, premiered on Amazon Prime earlier this month...
Newspapers went through a critical transformation over the last decade that saw physical newspapers go the way of the do...