Cinema Lounge Reviews

The American streaming giant, Paramount+, is finally bringing all its content as well as original shows to the UK. This comes after an announcement was made by ViacomCBS International Networks, now rebranded as Paramount on Tuesday 3rd May 2022.

The President and CEO of VicaomCBS International Networks said in his statement following the announcement: “Paramount is known for its leading portfolio of premium entertainment brands and a robust content engine that fuels our rapidly expanding streaming service, Paramount+. This year will be monumental for our streaming strategy as we accelerate our global ambitions, rapidly expanding Paramount+ in Europe beginning with the UK, Italy, Germany, France and more by the end of this year and debut in Asia with South Korea in June, followed by India in 2023.“

The streaming platform first hit the American audience on March 4th 2021 acting as a rebranded version of its previous service, CBS All Access. Since its launch, its become one of the biggest streaming platforms in the US racking up a whopping 32.8 million subscribers at the end of 2021 which now has more customers than NBCUniversal’s Peacock which only has 9 million and is also available in the UK. Paramount+ is set to increase its total number of paying customers as it is set to hit the UK on June 22nd 2022 bringing its huge collection of movies and TV including its original shows to the UK audience.

Last August, it was announced that the UK TV service Sky will partner with Paramount+ to help bring its service to the UK by offering it to its Sky Cinema and Sky Q customers for no extra charge. Don’t worry however if you don’t have any of these as the service will still be available for download as an app on iOS and Android as well as on compatible smart TVs. For those of you who won’t be getting the service on Sky Cinema or Sky Q, then it will cost you £6.99 monthly or £69.90 annually which includes a seven-day free trial.

In terms of what content will be at our hands when it launches here, we will be given more than 8,000 hours worth of content featuring Paramount+ originals, hit TV shows and popular movies from every Paramount brand including SHOWTIME, Paramount Pictures, Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon. With shows like the rebooted iCarly series, the video game based TV show Halo, the Star Trek franchise, Yellowstone, The First Lady and hundreds more shows set to enhance the number of shows and movies we will be able to watch here in the UK.

In addition to that, Paramount also announced that from 2024, all their theatrical releases will make their way to its service after they have completed their runs in the cinema which means blockbusters such as Mission: Impossible 7, Tom Cruise’s highly anticipated Top Gun: Maverick and The Lost City starring Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum will all be coming to the platform in the future. With all these big titles coming to the service and with the amount of hugely popular shows it already has in its library, Paramount+ could potentially compete with some of the biggest streaming platforms in the world right now such as Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and AppleTV.