Marketing a Merger
How Paramount+ and Showtime Can Sell Themselves to Their New Subscribers
Photo: Warner Bros./Discovery
With the departure of top Showtime executive David Nevins expected at the end of 2022, it seems more likely than ever that parent company Paramount will fold the premium cable network into its streaming service, Paramount+. The potential advantages of such a move are obvious, but the strategy won’t work if both companies can’t effectively sell the merger to subscribers. To do that, the two companies will need data on the viewing habits of TV audiences across platforms — data that Ranker Insights happens to have.
To help these two major TV players think out their merger, we created viewer personas for each platform, each with tastes leaning toward different genres in TV, then mapped out the Showtime series that are most likely to appeal to certain Paramount+ fans (and vice versa)
We organized Paramount+ viewers into four basic categories: fans of action/adventure and crime procedurals (including shows like CSI, Blue Bloods, and The Equalizer), comedy (B Positive, Players, and Inside Amy Schumer), reality TV (Ru Paul’s Drag Race, Survivor, and Ink Master), and drama (1883, Mayor of Kingstown, and Guilty Party). Some Paramount+ shows are more likely to be enjoyed exclusively by one group, while others are beloved by multiple groups. For instance, the documentary series Outcry is recommended only to drama fans; City on a Hill to fans of both comedy and action; Penny Dreadful to fans of drama, action, and comedy; and American Gigolo to fans of all four genres. Here are a few takeaways that jumped out:
Showtime Shows Attract Paramount+’s More Serious Viewers: Not to generalize about either service’s diverse catalog, but Paramount+’s major strength is its wealth of linear, traditional TV shows from networks like Comedy Central and MTV, while Showtime is better known for the kind of dark “prestige TV” that presaged streaming. That explains why Showtime’s lighter comedies appeal to fans of Paramount+’s darker genres like drama and procedural. Showtime comedy Moonbase 8 is recommended only to those who love Paramount+ dramas, for instance.
Marquee Series Draw Fans From All Corners: Showtime’s biggest hits like Homeland and Dexter appeal to Paramount+ fans of all genres — that’s unsurprising, given these shows’ broad appeal, but reassuring. Even more encouraging is that Showtime’s newer popular series are similarly attractive to fans of all genres, including the Emmy-nominated Yellowjackets and American Gigolo, which premiered only a few months before this blog’s publication in September 2022.
Traditional Broadcast Viewers May Be Hardest Sell for Showtime: For the purposes of legibility, the graphic above features only some of the affinities Watchworthy was able to surface. The genre with the fewest affinities is action/procedural, which features mostly the kind of traditional broadcast programming Showtime broke away from when it first started. It makes sense that this category of TV viewer would feature the most holdouts, but if they’re already Paramount+ subscribers, shows like Ray Donovan, The Borgias, and American Rust seem to be the best way to entice them into a crossover.
To explore the converse and look at which Paramount+ shows would most appeal to Showtime subscribers, we organized the content into the comedy, drama, horror, and reality TV genres. Here’s what Watchworthy told us about the tastes of these Showtime fans when it comes to Paramount+ programming:
Legacy Cable Content Is More Divisive Than Paramount+ Originals: Paramount has been attracting subscribers with both a raft of new original shows and a formidable stable of legacy programming from verticals like CBS, Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1, and Comedy Central. But when it comes to those who love Showtime shows, it seems that the original content is what’s more likely to draw them into Paramount’s subscriber base. Comedies like Players and dark dramas like Mayor of Kingstown alike appeal to fans across all four genres.
Comedy’s Appeal Can’t Be Ignored: While Showtime does have plenty of great comedy shows, they tend to be a little drier and subtler than the comedies available on Comedy Central and MTV. Showtime subscribers do appear to have a need for broader comedies, however, as they show up more frequently in our analysis than CBS procedurals or BET dramas do.
For Showtime Subscribers, Scripted Is Superior: MTV and CBS both have plenty of incredibly popular reality programming, but to attract Showtime subscribers, it’s not likely to make much of an impact. Most of the TV that registers interest among fans of the premium network is scripted, with shows like The Real World and Big Brother never making an appearance. Fans of Showtime series do appear to be looking for different, more varied content — just not too different.
Showtime is a premium cable network looking to expand and compete in a world without cable. Paramount+ is a relatively new service hoping for premium content to fuel new subscriptions and establish itself as one of the Top 5 streamers. It’s obvious that a merger could help both of these companies with their respective goals, but they stand the risk of actually losing ground if they fail to effectively explain the advantages of such a move to their current subscribers.
Like the union of HBO Max and Discovery+, this consolidation will likely come with a hike in subscription prices. A lot depends on how exactly Paramount would execute such a merger — it could offer access to Showtime series for a slightly higher price, bundle subscriptions to Paramount+ and the network’s current streaming app Showtime Anytime, or simply make Showtime a new tile in its menu while increasing prices for all subscribers. Whatever the method, the best way to protect against churn is to target the users of these respective services with content they’re more likely to feel is worth including in their limited streaming budget.
As the streaming wars move into a new phase and more providers begin to consolidate, this kind of data will become more and more valuable. Streamers can no longer rely on their in-house data, limited to their own content catalogs. To keep building their subscriber base, streaming services will have to fight for each other’s subscribers, which means identifying and understanding the tastes of audiences across the TV landscape.
