Paramount Global (formerly known as ViacomCBS) expects to increase direct-to-consumer content spending to more than $6 billion in 2024, the company revealed on Tuesday during its Q4 earnings and streaming investor day presentation.
This is a jump from its previous guidance, which was that Paramount expected streaming content spend to exceed $5 billion in 2024, including $4 billion of expenses associated with its DTC services. In 2021, Paramount spent $2.2 billion on direct-to-consumer content.
Additionally, Paramount CFO Naveen Chopra said the company formerly known as ViacomCBS is increasing its DTC revenue goal to over $9 billion for 2024. Last year, Paramount said it anticipated global streaming revenue to exceed $7 billion in 2024, with $6 billion of that revenue coming from its DTC segment, and the remainder being digital video advertising, which is now categorized by the company under its TV media segment.
Earlier Tuesday, Paramount — which announced its name change during the investor presentation — announced Paramount Plus and Showtime gained 9.4 million streaming subscribers, topping a combined 56 million subscribers by the end of last year, as the company showed it was relying more heavily on revenue from streaming-media operations.
About 80% of those new subs — or 7.3 million — were strictly Paramount Plus additions. By the close of Q4, Paramount Plus’ total subscribers reached 32.8 million.
The company also told investors that it was raising its global streaming subscriber goal from 65 million to 75 million by 2024, to more than 100 million by the end of that year.
Paramount saw smaller growth in revenue from advertising and distribution, while jumping 48% in revenue from streaming, which reached $1.32 billion. The increase in subscriptions was fueled by viewership of Paramount Plus’ “Yellowstone” prequel “1883” and drama “Mayor of Kingstown,” as well as movie “Clifford the Big Red Dog” and NFL games. It’s also very likely that Paramount Plus got a healthy bump in customers by offering eligible T-Mobile customers a year of free Paramount Plus back in November. Over on Showtime, signups were increased by “Dexter: New Blood” and freshman hit “Yellowjackets.”
(Pictured above: Paramount Plus series “1883.”)