Higher prices, fewer shows and more franchise spin-offs: The bill for peak TV is coming due, and media companies are hoping they can pass on the cost to consumers and shareholders. Paramount Global’s announcement that it could write down as much as 1.5 billion in content this year as it merges Paramount+ and Showtime is just the latest sign of the newly cost-conscious stage of the streaming revolution, experts and analysts told TheWrap.
Paramount is just one of many media companies looking to rationalize their portfolios: Consider Disney’s Hulu dilemma or Warner Bros. Discovery’s pending plan to combine HBO Max and Discovery+. But Paramount may be moving the most decisively to scale back a famous brand from the era of cable TV to bolster its direct-to-consumer business and cut costs, as investors grow impatient with streaming losses. Like many of its peers, Paramount has also pledged 2023 will be a year of “peak investment,
