Paramount+ could soon look more like TikTok.
Paramount Skydance is planning to add a heavy dose of short-form video to its flagship streaming service, according to internal presentations and emails viewed by Business Insider.
Dan Reich, the head of global product and design for Paramount+, emailed fellow executives in mid-January, asking to set up a meeting with Paramount product chief Dane Glasgow to discuss “Short Form Clips.”
“We are trying to figure out how to jump-start efforts to get a million clips into our Short Form UX as quickly as possible,” Reich wrote in an email.
This short-form video initiative is part of a so-called “Project Eagle,” Reich said in the email, though it’s not immediately clear what else that project entails.
Reich added that his “current understanding” was that Paramount’s AMLG, or Applied Machine Learning Group, “has the clips ready (or near ready?)” for another team to test the feature before it launches.
“As soon as we get the clips in, there will be increased pressure to provide a personalized feed of clips,” Reich wrote to his colleagues.
The Paramount+ product design exec said he planned to discuss two topics in the meeting with Glasgow:
- “What needs to happen to accelerate the process to get this done”
- “If there are workarounds to more quickly deliver the short form content into the experience”
Short-form video is a top priority for Paramount+ in the first quarter, specifically in its mobile app, according to an internal presentation sent by Reich that was viewed by Business Insider.
The documents viewed by Business Insider suggest that these short-form clips on Paramount+ will initially be created from existing content. However, Paramount is also interested in hosting user-generated content, which is the backbone of platforms like YouTube and TikTok. “UGC” was listed in the “Mobile App Brainstorms” section of a Paramount+ priorities presentation viewed by Business Insider.
A person familiar with Paramount’s short-form video plans said that the appeal of UGC is that it could be “cheap and brings eyes to Paramount.”
Another person familiar with Paramount’s thinking said there are many products and initiatives in testing on the streaming side, and that the results of those tests would determine leadership’s priorities.
A Paramount spokesperson declined to comment.
Paramount hasn’t previously done much with short-form video, outside a limited offering of trailers, clips, and interviews on its streaming app and social platforms like YouTube. It doesn’t have a dedicated short-form feed on Paramount+.
Streamers have a short-form fixation
Paramount’s planned move into short-form video comes as CEO David Ellison implements his tech-first vision — and as Oracle, the software giant cofounded by his father, Larry Ellison, just became one of the select owners of TikTok’s US business.
Disney has also announced plans to put short-form video and UGC into Disney+ using AI, through a deal with ChatGPT maker OpenAI announced in December.
Netflix, the leader among paid streamers, has experimented with short-form vertical video on its service, and co-CEO Greg Peters said on the company’s mid-January earnings call that it’s redesigning its mobile app with short-form video to compete with social media apps and “better serve the expansion of our business over the decade to come.”
Audiences, especially young people, have become hooked on short-form video through TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Hollywood is looking to get in on the action with so-called “micro-dramas,” mobile-focused shows with bite-sized episodes that are often soapy dramas.
The changes in consumption patterns among viewers come as traditional TV continues to lose customers and social video rises.
