Paramount+ content slate for 2022: Spreadsheet, The Bridge Australia and Couple’s Therapy
In 2022 ViacomCBS streaming service Paramount+ will be showing live sports, entertainment, and local and international content from CBS, Nickelodeon, MTV, BET, Comedy Central, Showtime and the Smithsonian Channel.
The content slate, announced at Ten’s 2022 Upfronts today was headlined by new series which will premiere at the end of 2021, Spreadsheet, a new Australian comedy about newly divorced, mother-of-two Lauren (Katherine Parkinson) who is on the hunt for sex with no strings attached. With the help of her best friend, she creates a spreadsheet – a database of potential men to sleep with.
Other shows coming at the end of the year include Dexter: New Blood, special event series, which follows serial killer Dexter Morgan; Yellowjackets, a combination of coming-of-age drama and psychological horror story; Mayor of Kingstown, which follows the McLusky family, power brokers in Kingstown, Michigan, where the business of incarceration is the only thriving industry, as well as 1883, which promises to transport Yellowstone fans more than 130 years into the past to learn how the Dutton family got their start in Montana.
Ten ViacomCBS, executive vice president and chief content officer, Beverley McGarvey
On the Australian content slate, for 2022 Paramount+ will premiere season two of Five Bedrooms, with homeowners – Liz, Harry, Ben, Heather and Ainsley back for a third season. The Australian premier of Couples Therapy Australia, will also join the line-up, which will see real-life couples lay bare their intimacy issues with a professional therapist.
Adding to the list, drama series 6 Festivals, backed by an all-Australian soundtrack, follows three best friends as they bucket-list six music festivals over six months, whilst coming to terms with a shattering cancer diagnosis.
Meanwhile, John Ibrahim’s autobiography mini-series, Last King of the Cross, shares the tale of brothers John and Sam, their ascent to power on Sydney’s mean streets, and the impact their expanding empire has on their relationship.
New Australian reality adventure program The Bridge Australia will offer up-for-a-challenge Australians the chance to work together to build a bridge to an island where prize money awaits. Once the team members have completed their feat of engineering, they’ll be forced to decide which of them most deserves the cash based on their contribution to building The Bridge.
With regards to Paramount+’s upcoming local programming slate, Ten ViacomCBS, executive vice president and chief content officer, Beverley McGarvey said: “Our selection really captures the essence of what makes entertainment in Australia so powerful. There’s depth in the narratives and complexity to the characters; the production values are world class; and our cast and local crews only underline the diverse, talented bunch we are.”
While the streaming service only launched two months ago on 11 August, McGarvey said the platform had given Ten ViacomCBS “scale” in the market.
“I don’t think anyone is super direct with their numbers on SVD, all I can say is it it’s bigger than we had forecast,” she said.
Paramount+ will also house a raft of sport, including A-Leagues, plus live coverage of Matildas, Socceroos, FFA Cup and the Emirates FA Cup matches. While all will be on Paramount+, some will also feature on ViacomCBS free to air channels.
Ads are currently included on the platform for live sport, and McGarvey said there are “no other plans for any other ads to be carried on the subscription service at the moment”.
Ten ViacomCBS chief sales officer, Rod Prosser, added: “Sport is an interesting proposition, as we know that viewers are much more willing to watch and see advertisements in sport, the balance has to be right, as people are paying for the service.”
With regards to capitalising on the cross-platform opportunities within the Ten ViacomCBS stable, Prosser said: “We have not formalised a monetisation strategy around that at this point, but there are loads of opportunities to extend it across our digital platforms.
“The thing we continue to focus on now is how to integrate advertisers into our BVOD environments.”
Also coming to the platform in early 2022 is Four Hours at the Capitol, a documentary about the insurrection at the US Capitol Building, when thousands of American citizens from across the country gathered in Washington DC to protest the results of the 2020 presidential election,
Additionally, Paramount+ will include feature films A Quiet Place Part II (Emily Blunt, John Krasinski) and Paw Patrol The Movie (Skye, Rubble, Zuma, Marshall) and binge-worthy dramas The First Lady (Viola Davis, Gillian Anderson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Aaron Eckhart); Three Women (Shailene Woodley, DeWanda Wise); The Man Who Fell to Earth (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Naomie Harris); Super Pumped (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kyle Chandler); Ripley (Dakota Fanning, Andrew Scott); a feature-length Ray Donovan film (Liev Schreiber); and The Gilded Age (Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon).
And for all Halo gamers out there (80-million and counting, since its release in 2001), the creators of the video game series have ventured into TV. The live-action Halo series will take viewers into the world of the Master Chief, to see a 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant.
Other exclusive titles for 2022 include The Panthers, The Offer, The Envoys (Los Enviados), Tokyo Vice and Ghislaine Maxwell: The Making of a Monster.
To hear what the major media buyers think about the Ten Upfronts, click here.
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topics
10 ViacomCBS
Beverley McGarvey
Couple's Therepy
Dexter
Paramount+ ViacomCBS
Rod Prosser
Spreadsheet
streaming service
Ten
Ten Upfronts 2022
The Bridge Australia
