By Abb Jones
The Reelness

The battle of the streaming platforms will get a little more crowded when the latest entrant, Paramount+, enters the fray March 4th.

Paramount+ is actually a rebranding of CBS All Access, with TV content, including live sports such as NFL games, coming from CBS (including CBS News and CBS Sports), MTV, Nickelodeon, BET, Comedy Central and Smithsonian Channel, and movies from Paramount Pictures and MGM. Films like Top Gun: Maverick, Quiet Place 2 and Mission Impossible 7 will make their way to the platform 45 days after theatrical release.

Although pricing for now will remain the same $5.99 per month as CBS All Access, in June it will drop to $4.99 a month, and will be available as either a direct purchase (paramountplus.com) or as an add-on service via Amazon, AppleTV or Roku. There will also be a component to add the Showtime movie network to the streaming platform.

The biggest drawback of the CBS All Access rebranding to Paramount+ is that local CBS stations will be dropped. To keep watching CBS shows for free, as of March 4th, users will need to download a new CBS app. Subscribers of  participating pay-TV partners can use their credentials to sign in to the CBS app to access their live local station.

ViacomCBS says Paramount+ will also launch across 18 Latin American countries on March 4th. The Canadian version of CBS All Access will get the new name then as well, with the expanded content available later in 2021. Paramount+ will debut in the Nordics on March 25th and Australia in mid-2021. For most international subscribers, Paramount+ also will be the home to Showtime.

What are your thoughts? Will Paramount+ carve out a niche or get swallowed up among the increasingly crowded streaming platform market? Chime in with your comments below.