Paramount Plus is getting more expensive whether you want Showtime or not
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Later this year, Paramount Plus and Showtime will join forces to deliver a new streaming platform in the US: the not-so-creatively named Paramount Plus with Showtime. Unfortunately, if they combine, existing Paramount Plus subscribers will see their monthly bill increase.
If you’re a subscriber in the US, the monthly cost of Paramount Plus will increase from $9.99 per month to $11.99 per month for the combined service, according to comments in Paramount’s recent Q4 2022 earnings call (opens in new tab).
Perhaps even more annoying, though, is the news that the Essential tier of Paramount Plus — which doesn’t include access to the new Showtime content — is increasing from $4.99 to $5.99 per month. So if you’re an existing Paramount Plus subscriber at either tier, you’ll see your bill rise sometime in Q3 2023 (i.e. July-September) – as this is the vague release date the company has given for Paramount Plus with Showtime.
While we expected Paramount Plus to see a post-merger price hike, it’s still disappointing — especially after the recent news that Showtime recently canceled a slew of shows and movies, including Let the right one in, american gigolo, And About Becoming a God in Central Florida.
Those of you reluctant to pay more to watch the best Paramount Plus shows may want to try one of the other best streaming services, but be warned that some other services are also changing for the worse; In particular, Netflix is taking a tougher stance on password sharing for Netflix and is introducing its paid password sharing rules in new regions.
If you’re subscribing to Paramount Plus from outside the US, you should be safe from the impending price hike, but we suggest you pay attention as we suspect the cost of the service will soon increase everywhere. During its earnings call, Paramount announced that its streaming losses had increased from $502 million in Q4 2021 to $575 million, and we expect it will look to cut those losses by generating more revenue.