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Paramount+ catapulted into the world on March 4, but its arrival didn’t exactly inspire mass fanfare. Born out of the ashes of CBS All Access, Paramount+ entered an overcrowded field of subscription streaming platforms whose barrage of bingeable content was already inducing decision fatigue in viewers. Media watchers shrugged, skeptical that Paramount+ could keep pace—creatively or financially—with deep-pocketed competitors like Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, Apple TV+, and Disney+.
Paramount+ aims to be a souped-up streaming machine delivering the bounty of ViacomCBS and its many brands, which include Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, and CBS. In its first several months, it stirred up some interest with reality TV originals (like an emotionally intense reunion of MTV’s first cast of