Paramount Global
PARA
announced that the year’s biggest blockbuster,
Top Gun: Maverick
has now become the most-watched film globally on Paramount+. Debuting on the streaming service on Dec 22, the film broke Paramount’s previous record held by
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
by 60%.
In addition to the film’s record-breaking success on Paramount’s streaming service, the movie also impacted the viewership of other titles, such as the original
Top Gun
with a 400% increase in viewership.
Alongside the original film from 1986, installments from the
Mission Impossible
franchise, which also stars Tom Cruise, saw a rise in viewership by 140%, signifying that the release of
Top Gun: Maverick
has built a new interest in other notable films in Cruise’s career.
Top Gun: Maverick
has scored two Golden Globes nominations for best original song and best motion pictured in drama category.
In addition to marking Cruise’s biggest opening and highest-grossing film, the film is also Paramount Pictures’ highest-grossing domestic release ever and the first movie to be No. 1 at the box office on both Memorial Day Weekend and Labor Day Weekend.
Paramount Global Price and Consensus
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Paramount+ to Aid Subscriber Growth
Paramount has been focused on setting a strong pipeline of movies and shows on the streaming platform which is expected to fuel its fan base.
Paramount added 4.6 million subscribers to its Paramount Plus streaming service and Pluto TV added 2.4 million monthly active users globally in the third quarter of fiscal 2022. This has bolstered affiliate and subscription revenues by 8% in the discussed quarter.
The company now expects to exceed its full year global direct to consumer subscriber growth expectation of 75 million global subscribers.
Paramount+ recently added a slew of movies to its streaming library, including horror hit
Smile
and the Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum-starring rom-com
The Lost City
. Paramount+ also announced the revival of the popular FBI drama,
Criminal Minds
.
The company plans to celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip hop music and culture for which Paramount+ will offer 50 of the most iconic episodes of MTV Entertainment’s original series
Yo! MTV Raps
for the first time since it premiered and episodes from the home-makeover series,
Hip Hop My House
.
Paramount also entered a new multi-year distribution agreement with Virgin Media, under which, Paramount+ will debut on Virgin TV in 2023 and Pluto TV will be more widely distributed on Virgin TV 360 and stream services.
Besides expanding the content library, Paramount+ has also been expanding its footprints globally. It has plans to introduce Paramount+ in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and in France with Canal+ this year.
Decline in Ad Revenues to Hurt the Top Line
Paramount Global has been facing a slump in its ad-revenues, which declined 2% in third-quarter fiscal 2022 and is expected to decline by a larger percentage in the fiscal fourth quarter as well, as per CEO Robert Bakish.
Robert Bakish has also revised the company’s previous forecast downward, below the fiscal third quarter, rather than in-line with prior results.
The toppling of ad revenues could be attributed to the economic downturn, which started with the coronavirus pandemic and was further led by the Russia-Ukraine War. These have resulted in high inflation, rising interest rates, high capital costs, a soaring U.S. dollar and an anticipated recession in the coming year.
In such turbulent and uncertain markets, companies are trying to decrease their costs and the first step to take on the heels of it is to compromise on advertising expenses.
Besides, stiff competition from streaming leaders like
Netflix
NFLX
,
Walt Disney
DIS
and
Warner Bros Discovery
WBD
is likely to impact subscriber growth for this Zacks Rank 5 (Strong Sell) company in the near term.
Both Netflix and Disney are set to launch their ad-tier subscriptions by the end of this year. These low-cost subscription plans are expected to improve their subscriber growth.
Netflix added 2.41 million new paid subscribers while Disney reported an increase of 12 million subscriber sequentially.
Warner Bros saw streaming subscriptions rise to nearly 95 million combined global customers across HBO, HBO Max and Discovery+ in third-quarter fiscal 2022.
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the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here
.
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