Comcast and Paramount Global reached an agreement to renew carriage, preventing a blackout that affected other pay-TV providers last year and keeping CBS other cable channels like MTV and Comedy Central on the cable behemoth’s schedule.
Comcast and Paramount Global inked a multi-year agreement in January 2022, when Paramount was still known as ViacomCBS, which is renewed by the new carriage pact. The prospective deal gap between the expiration of the existing agreement and the drafting of the new one was the cause of the potential blackout. However, a Comcast representative confirmed to Cord Cutters News that the businesses had agreed to prolong the terms in their current form before the new year, and that subscribers will not see any changes.
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Consumers can continue to watch programming on CBS-owned networks, such as the NFL, college football, U.E. Champions League soccer, CBS Sports Network, and March Madness.
Football fans would have suffered greatly from a blackout of coverage because Paramount broadcasts the NFL and other “marquee programming.” Super Bowl LVIII will be aired this February on CBS, Paramount’s main broadcast network, alongside Nickelodeon. If CBS loses, fans of all teams will be incensed, and this could lead to a new wave of cord cutting among a demographic that is already leaning toward streaming services like Prime Video and YouTube TV, which are expanding their sports packages to compete with cable TV.
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Comcast will continue to distribute Paramount’s content, including news and sports channels, on Comcast’s Xfinity TV and internet platforms as part of the renewed agreement. Professionals in the field projected that this arrangement would proceed in a manner akin to Disney’s extended carriage agreement with Charter Communications from September of last year, wherein Spectrum members received Disney+ at no cost, while Select Plus subscribers received ESPN+. Disney consented to remove a number of Spectrum’s low-rated cable networks in return.
Before the current agreement, which was signed in 2021, expires, Paramount will renegotiate its distribution agreement with Charter this year. According to Deadline, Charter stated that it intends to utilize the Disney agreement as a model for upcoming distribution contracts.
Charter Communications and Paramount Global were not available for comment.
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