ViacomCBS rebrands to Paramount, stock tanks 20 percent

VℱiacomCBS is no more. The media company that is home to MTV, CBS, Nickelodeon and Showtime renamed itself 🍰after its movie studio, Paramount, late Tuesday.

Investors apparently weren’t keen on the rebrand, as the stock plummeted more than 21% in the wake of the news on Wednesday.

The media giant — which was created through the merger of CBS and Viacom in 2019 — said the rebrand is meant to focus on its goal of becoming a major player in streaming, even though it’s seriously lagging behind its peers at the moment when it comes to the number of subscribers.

Paramount intends to “turn streaming into a sustainable business for the fu𝓡ture,” Paramount CEO Bob Bakish said during an investor event late Tuesday, “and know this, we ar꧋e committed to that future and creating that value.”

The company has designs on reaching 100 million streaming subscribers by ♔ཧ2024 — up from its previous goal of 65 million to 75 million during the same timeframe.

Currently, its two streaming serv💧ices, Paramount+ and Showtime, have a combined 56 million subscribers🦹.

That’s far behind streaming rivals such as Netflix with 222 million subscribers, Disney+ with 130 million and HBO Max wnith 74 million sign-ups.

Even though Paramount is late to the game, Bakish laid out the company’s big plans, which include an international push, a mobile-only offering and exclusive movies.

The CEO said that starting in 2024, all Paramount mov💃ies will be exclusively s🌟treamed on Paramount+ in the US following their theatrical runs.

Bakish said the company starts trading Thursday under n💧ew stock symbol PARAA o🥀n the Nasdaq.

The comp🍸any also reported that its fourth-quarter adjusted earnings totaled $557 million, or 26 cents a share, compared with year-ago income of $1.18 billion, or $1.04 a share. Reven꧙ue rose 16% to $8 billion from $6.87 billion in the year-earlier period.