Every media company has finally realized that streaming is the future, and are thus launching their own streaming platform. It somehow seems lost on all these various entities that this is going to lead the market being overly fractured, and will thus inevitably leave some of these services in the dust (we’ve already seen Quibi come and go, and HBO Max has been something of a debacle). What they’re doing is ostensibly the equivalent of if every record label pulled their releases from Spotify and Apple Music and Pandora and launched their own exclusive DSP instead, so that instead of paying Spotify ten buck a month for everything, fans had to pay Metal Blade $10 a month to listen to their catalog, and Roadrunner $10 a month to listen to their catalog, and Century $10 a month to listen to their catalog, and so on and so forth. What I imagine will end up happening is people will swap passwords with friends and/or illegally download content from platforms to which they don’t have access.
To their credit, the people behind Paramount+ (fka CBS All Access) seem to be taking its cues from Disney+, which has been one of the most successful streaming platforms that isn’t Netflix or Amazon thus far: they’re putting a lot of emphasis on IP and original content (why HBO Max didn’t have a Harry Potter or DC Comics-based show the day it launched is baffling to me; Disney+ having The Mandalorian the day it launched was obviously a huge boon for the service). Following some entertaining ads for the Super Bowl a few weeks back, the service held a launch event yesterday (February 24), during which they may some key announcements that may attract new subscribers.
Said announcements include the news that the studio’s major theatrical releases, like the upcoming Mission: Impossible 7 and A Quiet Place 2, will debut on the service 45 days after being released in theaters.
More germane to MetalSucks readers were these bits of news:
-Mike Judge is making a new Beavis and Butt-Head movie for the service. This is in ADDITION to the new Beavis and Butt-Head series he’s creating for Comedy Central, which will also end up streaming on the service, I imagine either at the same time they air or shortly thereafter. We don’t currently have a timeline for the movie, and we certainly don’t know what the plot will be, but this is great news for all of us who have wanted a sequel to Beavis and Butt-Head Do America for the past 25 years.
-Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl and his mother, Virginia Hanlon Grohl, will co-host an unscripted six-part series based on Virginia’s book, From Cradle to Stage. Grohl himself will direct the series, which will focus on various celebrity performers and their mothers. The identities of those celebrity performers have not yet been announced, but Virginia’s book included Dr. Dre and R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe.
-The popular VH1 docuseries Behind the Music is being revived. Again, no word yet on which artists will be featured… but previous highly-entertaining episodes focused on bands like Metallica, Judas Priest, Motörhead, Guns N’ Roses, Megadeth, Anthrax, Pantera, Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, and Twisted Sister. There’s obviously plenty of great, appropriately-famous metal bands left that would be a good match for the series, soooooo…
-MTV’s Unplugged series, on which artists performed acoustic versions of their non-acoustic material, is also being revived. Shock of shocks, no artists have been announced, but bands who participated in the past — and in some cases ended with classic live albums as a result of that participation — include Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Kiss, Stone Temple Pilots, Poison, Hole, and Pearl Jam. Although the idea of going acoustic isn’t as novel today as it as in the early ’90s, when the series first launched, the Unplugged brand may still be able to draw in sentimental/nostalgic viewers.
Paramount+ launched March 4. You can pre-order it now; plans are available for $60 a year (with “limited commercials”) and $100 a year (no commercials).