Paramount considers eliminating Showtime app

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) -It seems to be latest sign that companies are looking to streamline their brands. Paramount Global is reportedly considering making big changes to its streaming services. The company is said to be in early discussions about discontinuing its stand-alone Showtime service, and folding the content in with Paramount+.

The show-time streaming service costs $10.99 a month, but with consumers now having many streaming options to choose from Showtime is having a hard time competing.

Showtime’s current offerings include the breakout Yellowjackets, The Man Who Fell to Earth and City on a Hill, among other drama series.

Word of the potential wind-down of Showtime’s 7-year-old streaming service first surfaced on Tuesday, about two weeks after the company had already taken the step of offering Showtime and Paramount+ within a single app. Both services for now are still offered on a stand-alone basis, but further consolidation could help Paramount+ stand out in an increasingly competitive marketplace and also reduce costs.

Twitter Knocked Offline

The heatwave in California has app apparently knocked a key twitter data center offline. If there’s another outage elsewhere, the service could go dark for some users.

A twitter executive wrote in an internal memo to Twitter employees that Twitter lost its Sacramento data center region due to extreme heat. That puts the platform in what’s known as a “non-redundant state,” meaning it doesn’t have much backup if there’s another outage.

The vice president of engineering warning if the company loses data centers in Atlanta, GA and Portland, OR it might not be able to serve traffic to all Twitter’s users.

Instagram Reels are declining

New numbers released Wednesday show Instagram ‘Reels’ have been on the decline for four straight weeks. Instagram users are watching reels 17.6 million hours a day, which is less than one-tenth of the almost 200 million hours TikTok users spend on the app daily.

Only 2.3 million out of the 11 million people on Instagram use the reels feature. The main reason people aren’t making content on the platform is because they say it’s too stressful.

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