While most customers probably have Paramount+ subscriptions for series-watching purposes (the many Star Trek shows and Yellowstone spin-offs are its big franchises), having access to a vast library of movies is also a perk. Or it was a perk: according to a new survey, the number of available feature titles is less than half of what it was last year.
According to an audit by Reelgood (via IndieWire) that reviewed the “catalog evolution” of both TV shows and movies on the major U.S. streamers (Prime Video, Netflix, Peacock, Hulu, Max, Disney+, Paramount+, and Apple TV+) during the year spanning October 2022 to October 2023, Paramount+ has lost the most cinematic content. “By Reelgood’s count, at 803 titles, Paramount+ has fewer than half as many movies available for on-demand streaming than it did a year ago.” So far, this dip in content hasn’t deterred subscribers; as Reelgood notes, “Paramount+ just added 2.7 million customers over the summer and now has 63 million paying subscribers.” In June, Paramount+ launched its collaboration with Showtime; it’s unclear if this content integration affected the movie count.
Gizmodo reached out to Paramount+ for comment on Reelgood’s report about its declining movie numbers, and will update this post if we hear back.
By contrast, Prime Video has the most movies available (just over 12,000 in 2023; that’s an increase over 2022’s 10,285, but a dip from 2021’s 14,670)—way more than the second-biggest catalog, which is Netflix’s at just under 4,000 titles in October 2023. The service with the fewest feature films on offer is Apple TV+, which had a tidy 69 available as of October 2023. Aside from Paramount+, the only other service to cut its film library was notorious title-culler Max, but it lost far fewer titles, going from 2,558 to 2,168 between 2022 and 2023.