Remember when Warner Bros. Discovery announced that HBO would no longer exist as its own app and instead live inside the new Max app? Well, Paramount is adopting that same strategy for another beloved entertainment brand: Showtime.
Showtime exists within the Paramount+ streaming app already, so the process has started. However, as reported today by Variety, the app isn’t the only place where Showtime is getting downgraded. According to the company, the Showtime television channel will also be rebranded to Paramount+ with Showtime on January 8, 2024.
Paramount even released a promo video to announce the change, as well as reveal that the television channel will also now air some of the TV shows and movies from the Paramount+ streaming service. You can check out that video from YouTube below:
Paramount said in a statement: “The move aligns the brand with the Paramount+ With Showtime plan, a cornerstone integration for the streaming service, making this the first of its kind multiplatform brand that integrates streaming and linear content.”
However, things are going to get confusing for some subscribers:
Some subscribers of the linear Showtime channel will not have access to the Paramount+ With Showtime streaming plan. Instead, Paramount+ With Showtime cable subscribers will be able to access programming online via the authenticated streaming apps of pay-TV partners. Paramount Global does have agreements with some large pay-TV providers that allow Showtime cable subscribers to also access the Paramount+ With Showtime streaming service.
The move will effectively kill Showtime as a standalone brand, much like Warner Bros. Discovery did when they rolled HBO — arguably one of the most recognizable and acclaimed brands of all time — into its new Max app. I still love seeing Succession and The Last of Us next to Property Brothers.
R.I.P. Showtime. Twas HBO before you and you shall not be the last.
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