Alan Sawyer
The confusion of where and when Ghosts can be seen has been cleared up, at least somewhat, for the near future. And with a new contract, more clearly the long term.
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Paramount+ will be the exclusive streaming home for the hit comedy, and then it shifts to broadcast television when it premieres with Season 2 this fall on CBS. During the first season of the show, episodes were released to Paramount+ and aired concurrently on CBS, but the new deal ensures the streamer will be the only place to stream Ghosts.
“Since the series premiere, Ghosts has found passionate viewers – both on CBS and Paramount+,” David Stapf, president of CBS Studios, said in a statement. “Ratings and online conversation about the show have grown virtually every week, and the series is the No. 1 new comedy by a huge margin. The best part is that viewers are still finding this unique and brilliant series, and this new SVOD agreement will help further that discovery process in a big way.”
Tanya Giles, chief programming officer at Paramount+, echoed the statement but from the perspective of her organization.
“Ghosts is one of the biggest comedy hits in years and one of the most talked-about shows. It is the perfect addition to the fantastic pipeline of content driving peak streaming at Paramount+,” she said.
“With fresh storylines, an incredible cast, and a brilliant creative team, Ghosts is that rare television series that taps into the popular zeitgeist to become a cultural phenomenon,” Jim Packer, president of the Lionsgate Worldwide Television Distribution Group, added.
Paramount executives were likely negotiating this deal with vivd nightmares of Yellowstone haunting them. In January 2020 — before Yellowstone became a sensation and the most-watched cable drama — ViacomCBS made an exclusive streaming deal with Peacock. Which meant the show was scoring a massive success for a rival. Paramount+ is now already home to one Yellowstone spinoff, 1883, and has plans for a second but it does not have rights to the originator of the franchise. Since then, those same Paramount executives who have been plenty vocal about their regrets about that deal, worked to ink this one.
Under the terms of the new deal, Paramount+ will be the exclusive, year-round, subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) home of the show, beginning in the fall.
It will lock viewers into a routine that does involve cross-network confusion.
