Why Comedy Fans Shouldn’t Sleep on Paramount+
In need of a good laugh after those Election Day results? Aren’t we all! Paramount+ might be just what the (mental health) doctor ordered.
A new study by Nielsen’s Gracenote has found that Paramount+ features the greatest percentage of comedy-genre content (22.4 percent) of any of the five leading global SVOD services. You can just imagine what that number would be if Paramount+ had the 26 “South Park” seasons, which it won’t get back until June 2025. (The Comedy Central parent company made a short-sighted deal with Max, f.k.a. HBO Max — possibly one as regrettable as the one Paramount made with Peacock for “Yellowstone” streaming rights. It is sort of working around both with spinoffs and specials.) The streamer can however call home to “Colin From Accounts,” “Star Trek: Lower Decks,” “Knuckles,” and the revival of “Frasier,” to name a few.
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Compared to Paramount+, Amazon’s streaming service is as serious as a heart attack. Prime Video’s library, though much larger, is comprised of just 13.9 percent of comedies. Apple TV+ is 19.1 percent comedy, followed by Disney+ at 18.7 percent and Netflix at 18 percent.
That doesn’t mean Amazon Prime Video is light on comedy offerings — it’s pretty heavy on everything. Prime Video distributes nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of all of the movies offered by the five global SVODs; as we told you back in January, movie buffs need Prime Video. Amazon Prime Video also has more than half (57 percent) of the TV shows.
Gracenote tallied more than 550,000 TV show episodes, movies, and sports-related programs available across the five tracked SVODs, or about 84,000 unique titles. Nearly 90 percent of the content was TV episodes, and more than 70 percent of the combined content has been released since 2010.
Gracenote’s annual State of Play report analyzes the catalogs of SVOD services operating in nine of more countries around the world and launched before 2020. Thanks to its recent international expansion, Max will join the fray in 2025.
Last week, Paramount reported a second quarter (in a row) of profitability at streaming. That achievement may not be enough to save Paramount+ once David Ellison has his say. Ellison is in the regulatory part of purchasing control of Paramount Global, after which he plans to merge it with his Skydance company. His plans for streaming — and for Paramount’s linear television business, which includes the broadcast network CBS and a whole bunch of underperforming cable channels — are unclear.
As of September 30, 2024, Paramount+ has 72 million subscribers. They must love comedy — or at least NFL football.
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