Paramount+ turns one year old, rolls out special offers

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Paramount+ turns one year old March 4, 2022 and to mark the occasion is offering plans for as low as $1 per month for the first three months.

The service has its roots in CBS All Access, one of the earliest network owned streaming services to enter the market. It launched back in 2014.

On March 4, 2021, ViacomCBS, which is now known as Paramount Global, rebranded the service under the Paramount+ service.

For new and returning signups, the streamer is offering a special price of $1 per month for the first three months for the essential plan, which includes limited commercials and access to over 40,000 on demand TV show episodes and movies, live streaming of NFL of CBS, select soccer coverage and access to CBS News Streaming Network (which is free to everyone).

Users can also sign up for premium, which adds additional live sports, no advertising except on live TV and select programming and access to local CBS stations in eligible markets. It also lets users download content for offline viewing.

This plan is being offered at $2 a month for the first three months.

After the initial term expires, the subscription cost increases to the normal price of $4.99 a month for essential and $9.99 a month for premium.

Users should use the discount code BIRTHDAY to receive this pricing.

This offer is available for both new and former subscribers. The Paramount+ site does not mention how long a user must be inactive to be considered “returning.”

Existing subscribers are not eligible for the offer and signing up under it means users are not eligible for any free trials.

Paramount+ had 32.8 million subscribers at the end of 2021, which the company said exceeded its goals.

At least some of that growth could be attributed to a deal with T-Mobile to give postpaid wireless customers a free year of Paramount+. Terms of the T-Mobile deal were not released, Paramount is almost certainly not collecting the full monthly subscription cost from customers acquired that way. It will also likely need to retain a good chunk of those signups after the first year to make the deal a good investment and keep subscriber counts up.

Meanwhile, Paramount said it’s raising its streaming subscriber goal from 65 million to 75 million by the end of 2024 to more than 100 million by then, which is a significant boost.

That’s compared to Netflix’s 221 million subscribers worldwide and Disney+’s nearly 130 million. NBC’s Peacock is has about 9 million people on its service. Peacock and Paramount+ are both in the middle of international rollout plans.

While streaming has become a big priority for many media companies, some have seen slower signup growth that, in some cases, isn’t enough to offset users who cancel.

Paramount also said it will be increasing content expenses as part of the strategy to attract and retain streaming customers. Production costs tend to be one of the biggest expenses for streaming services, most of which offer original programming not available elsewhere to lure in subscribers. Major streaming providers can each spend billions a year on content.

Paramount has said it’s looking toward streaming as a key part of its revenue and profit going forward as linear TV audiences continue to shrink.