Move over Netflix, because there’s another streaming selection as big movie name Paramount launches its own service locally.
There’s yet more choice in the streaming game, as Paramount joins the list of places you can choose to get your content from, likely affecting the catalogue Netflix and Stan have available, while also possibly broadening your own.
The launch of Paramount’s service wasn’t unexpected, as it was hinted at earlier in the year, but it does mean that Paramount’s selection of regular channels such as Showtime, MTV, Nickelodeon, and Comedy Central, not to mention CBS, can get their own place for content, as the company behind Star Trek joins Disney with a service not by a content provider per se, but by the maker and distributor of these titles.
Much like it is around the rest of the world, Paramount is joining the naming convention of using a plus sign, as Paramount+ launches in Australia, available on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Android, Google TV, Fetch TV, Telstra TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Sony Bravia TVs, but missing in action for the moment on Samsung, LG, and Hisense TVs.
The service will bring Paramount’s large back catalogue to Australian viewers, covering titles from the aforementioned Star Trek series, as well as Austin Powers, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones,Mission: Impossible, Transformers, and more. Overseas, US subscribers to Paramount+ have even been granted access to the recently released A Quiet Place: Part II, which is available on Australian rental services such as iTunes, yet not on Paramount+ locally yet.
TV content will also get a showing, because Paramount has made quite a bit of that, covering South Park, the late shows of Stephen Colbert and James Corden, plus Dexter, as that show leaves Stan and joins Paramount+ ahead of a new Dexter season, Dexter: New Blood. Shake-ups of the sort are bound to happen over the coming months, because while contracts will need to play out between media licensing and other streaming services, there’s a good bet that Paramount shows on other services will eventually make their home at Paramount+ in Australia.
There’s also more coming than just the old content, with programs from Australia and the rest of the world, as Ten’s content makes it way to Paramount+, while local content additions are made, including the shows Spreadsheet and Five Bedrooms, with other titles set to include new versions of Rugrats and Nancy Drew, plus a new film with Mark Wahlberg “Infinite”, to say the least. Paramount+ is also supporting sports in Australia, with A-League and W-League soccer matches from October.
What Paramount+ won’t have in Australia is 4K, as that’s not launching with the service locally. That’s not to say that it won’t come eventually, but for now, Paramount’s local team confirmed to Pickr that it is an HD service, supporting three concurrent streams at once. That means you can watch and two other people at once, but only in HD.
Locally, Paramount+ is priced at $8.99 per month or $89.99 per year, offering a seven day trial for new customers, which given the launch of the service this week, everyone technically is.
