WILL PARAMOUNT+ BE A MOUNTAIN OR A MOLEHILL IN STREAMING?

Paramount+ debuts Thursday as the latest — and last — streaming option from a major media company, this time from ViacomCBS. It’s betting that consumers are willing to add yet another paid streaming service in an increasingly crowded field.

Its backers hope a smorgasbord of offerings — live sports and news, reboots of properties like “Frasier” and “Rugrats,” original shows like “Star Trek: Discovery” and the ViacomCBS library — will entice viewers. But its relatively late entrance to a competitive landscape and a $4 price increase compared to its predecessor, CBS All Access, could make it a challenging sell.

“Paramount+ has a mountain of challenges ahead of it,” said Tim Hanlon, CEO of Vertere Group, playing off the Paramount+ tagline, “A mountain of entertainment.” (The venerable Paramount logo features — you guessed it — a mountain, and the streamer’s recent ad campaign featured a number of characters from its shows climbing a snowy peak.)

Over the last year and a half more and more streaming services have debuted to challenge the reigning triumvirate of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime. Disney+ kicked things off in late 2019, followed by WarnerMedia’s HBO Max, NBCUniversal’s Peacock and Discovery+.

In a way, ViacomCBS is a pioneer; CBS, then a separate company, debuted CBS All Access in 2014. The new service effectively rebrands All Access and adds other Viacom Properties channels including Comedy Central, BET, MTV and Nickelodeon.