Paramount plans product push at Paramount+ ahead of Warner Bros. Discovery deal

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Paramount+ product push plans

Highlights

Paramount is preparing a major Paramount+ product overhaul—including a free tier and AI tools—as David Ellison finalizes a $110 billion Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition.
Projects for the free tier are scheduled for Q4 and Q1 2027, as Paramount+ accelerates focus on short vertical video and daytime mobile engagement to counter high churn nearing 6% monthly.
Integration of Paramount+ with Pluto TV nears completion, but upcoming merger with HBO Max and Discovery+ raises execution and technology integration risks within Paramount’s streaming priorities.

Streaming roadmap ahead of the merger

As first reported by Business Insider, internal documents and employee discussions show Paramount is preparing a broader product overhaul for Paramount+ as David Ellison finalizes the company's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The planned additions include a free tier, micro dramas, interactive advertising formats, a comments section for its TikTok-style feed and artificial intelligence tools to help clip videos.

Several projects tied to the free tier are marked for Q4 and Q1 2027 in an internal document, though launch dates for the wider feature set are not yet fixed, according to a person familiar with the strategy. Paramount+ is also putting more emphasis on short vertical video, introduced in April, and on video podcast segments to increase daytime and mobile viewing.

The initiatives list, described by one tech staffer as a changing internal roadmap, reflects the priorities of Paramount's streaming team before the Warner Bros. Discovery merger closes. Ellison has been reshaping the company around technology, including hiring executives from groups such as Google and Meta, as Paramount seeks the scale to compete more directly with Netflix and YouTube.

Subscriber pressure and integration risks

Paramount's product changes are aimed at two core objectives, boosting engagement and lifting revenue per viewer. Those goals are pressing because Paramount+ faces relatively high churn and light usage, with subscription data firm Antenna saying nearly 6% of subscribers canceled in August and that more than a third of users watched the service only lightly in a June report.

A free tier could help bring more users into the Paramount ecosystem before converting some of them to paid plans. Internal documents say users would have to register with an email before accessing the free offering, giving Paramount a way to market to them later, while viewing limits or time-based pay prompts are meant to stop users from consuming large volumes of free content without friction.

The company is also nearing completion of a project to integrate Paramount+ and Pluto TV onto a single technology platform, according to people familiar with the matter. But the planned addition of HBO Max and Discovery+ creates fresh uncertainty over how products, content and engineering systems will ultimately fit together, and some employees expect a new round of internal competition over technology priorities.

In our earlier coverage of Paramount Skydance’s financing push for the Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition, we outlined how the company moved to line up a large debt package to fund the $110 billion deal after clearing key domestic legal hurdles. We also highlighted expectations that the combined group could carry a very heavy post-merger debt load, alongside commitments tied to U.S. film production and editorial-independence safeguards at CBS and CNN.

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