After Losing Out In AFL Rights Bid Paramount + Set To Jack Up Sub Prices
Paramount Global the owners of Channel Ten, who this week delivered the lowest ever TV audience for the running of the Melbourne Cup, is set to jack up the price of their Paramount + streaming service.
In a conference call overnight Paramount Chief Financial Officer Navveen Chopra indicated that the price of a subscription to Paramount + who missed out on their bid for the AFL TV and streaming rights in Australia is set to rise.
“We don’t know how much. But a price increase is coming” he said.
“We definitely see opportunities to increase price on Paramount+,” Chopra said in response to Deutsche Bank’s Brian Kraft. “
“I think it’s fair to say that pricing is moving higher across the industry — you see that with a number of competing services, and we think that that means we have room to increase price.”
Chopra claimed that Paramount+ has some flexibility in how it increases prices, due to the business having a couple of subscription tiers.
Management claim that they hope the move to increase prices will not see an exit of subscribers from the streaming network.
“Of course, we’ll be smart about how and when we raise price,” Chopra added
He claimed that the price increase will be done “with content in mind”.
Paramount+ has 46 million subscribers worldwide, its parent company announced with its third-quarter earnings. It’s available on every major streaming platform, including Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV, Google TV, on smart TV sets, and in a web browser.
In other news Paramount said revenue for its TV media segment was down 5% to about $4.9 billion compared to the previous quarter, as Pay-TV subscriber numbers declined.
This announcement saw shares in Paramount Global fall by over 12%.
On the same call that Chopra announced prices coming for Paramount + CEO Bob Bakish claimed that digital advertising had more challenges, particularly since TV has the benefit of selling ads in advance.
“If an advertiser wants to make an impact on a national level, there’s no better demonstrated media than TV,” Bakish said.