While speculation about a sale continues to hover over Paramount Global, CEO Bob Bakish made clear on Wednesday that he is focused on solving the core problem plaguing all of Hollywood’s major studios: making streaming work before linear TV drags profits down too far.
As Paramount released its fourth-quarter results, Bakish and CFO Naveen Chopra told analysts that the struggling company — which S&P Global put on a negative credit watch last week — was a year ahead of schedule on realizing “peak losses” and could make domestic streaming profitable sooner than expected.
Revenue for three-year-old streaming service Paramount+ shot up 69% in the fourth quarter, year over year, “and we now expect to reach domestic Paramount+ profitability in 2025 — a significant milestone,” Bakish said in a statement on Wednesday.