TV & Video Week in Review

Report Type: 
Week In Review
Overview

Paramount+ adds 1 million subs in one week

Paramount+ claims it had a record-breaking week by adding more than one million subscribers and setting a record for total signups and hours streamed last week.  The increased engagement was boosted by several new content releases including feature film “Clifford the Big Red Dog”, new series “Mayor of Kingstown”, CBS event “Adele One Night Only” and local market NFL games.

The NPD Take:

  • Paramount’s strong week shows that content drives acquisition. Having a broad, appealing mix of content was key to the increased engagement last week for the service.  The challenge will be keeping viewers engaged in order to maintain ongoing subscriptions.
  • Finding the right mix and cadence of new content releases will be paramount in 2022 as services jockey for new subscribers and keeping current ones engaged. 

Roku leaning into originals

According to a recent WSJ report, Roku is planning on developing more than 50 original shows over the next two years. Roku claims that half of its customers watch Roku Channel’s free ad-supported shows and movies. The move follows Roku’s recent global rights acquisition in former short-form content start-up, Quibi.

The NPD Take:

  • Roku wants to remain an entertainment destination by diversifying its free content offering and providing added value to its customers while realizing the advertising profits of owned content.
  • Just like content services themselves, digital distributors want to remain relevant to gain and maintain market share by going beyond just hardware, in order to provide value and differentiation and grow profit margins.

Dish renews carriage agreement with Sinclair

Dish network and Sinclair have reached a new multi-year carriage agreement that keep’s Sinclair’s 144 broadcast TV channels available to its satellite and OTT subscribers.  While the new deal does bring back the Tennis Channel, Sinclair’s Bally Sports RSN’s are still missing from the agreement as Sinclair is still pursing launching its own DTC sports app in the new year.

The NPD Take:

  • The new multi-year, Dish-Sinclair agreement was important in order to ensure the pay TV provider remains able to provide broad programming for its subscribers.
  • Sports carriage deals remain a hot-button issue and it will be interesting to see how they unfold in the coming year since sports programming remains an important reason many people still subscribe to pay TV.