Direct-to-consumer losses at Paramount Global appear to have picked in 2022, a year ahead of plan.
Paramount+ increased its subscription revenue by 43% as subscribers, and the overall money received from them, grew. Paramount+ subscribers reached 67.5 million, with 4.1 million net additions in the quarter.
“The disciplined execution of our strategy, including the integration of Showtime into Paramount+ led to a reduction in full-year D2C losses, and meant we had peak streaming losses in 2022, a year ahead of schedule, with further significant improvement expected in 2024,” said CEO Bob Bakish.
Paramount+ global ARPU expanded 31% year-over-year and the company expects Paramount+ to reach domestic profitability by 2025.
Q4 also benefited from strong performance of the domestic Paramount+ with Showtime tier that help subscription revenue rise by 80%.
There was a 27% increase in total viewing hours across Paramount+ and Pluto TV.
CFO Naveen Chopra had data on international viewing habits, suggesting that the withdrawal from some international production would not have a dramatic impact. “We’ve learned that Paramount+ subscribers outside the United States spend nearly 90% of their time with our global Hollywood hits, meaning we can keep them engaged while rightsizing our investment in content that does not travel around the world. In some cases, this change will result in slower international subscriber growth,” he said.
However, Paramount’s linear business declined by 12%, hit by a fall in advertising revenue of 15%, amid a soft global advertising market.
