Apple / entertainment / PARAMOUNT+
REVIEW
Paramount+ is finally one app instead of three.
The CBS All Access rebrand, the Showtime merger, and the Skydance takeover have left a streamer that knows what it owns and has mostly stopped fighting itself about it.
BY THE APP COMRADE DESK · MAY 11, 2026 · 5 MIN READ
For a decade Paramount tried to be three streamers at once. CBS All Access launched in 2014 as a network catch-up app, Showtime Anytime ran beside it as a premium silo, and the Paramount film vault drifted between licensing deals on whoever would write the biggest cheque. The 2021 rebrand to Paramount+ pulled the first two together in name; the 2023 Showtime tier merger pulled them together in software; the 2024 Skydance acquisition pulled them together in management. What’s left is one app, one library, one bill.
It is not, yet, a beautifully designed app. The home screen still scrolls like a cable guide and the search still surfaces second-tier results above the obvious ones. But the library is the product, and once you stop expecting Netflix’s recommendation engine the app gets out of your way and lets you watch what you came for.
The library is the product, and once you stop expecting Netflix's recommendation engine the app gets out of your way.
FEATURES
The iOS app is the front door to the post-merger Paramount catalogue: CBS in real time and on demand, the Paramount Pictures film library, every Star Trek series, the Taylor Sheridan slate, MTV and Nickelodeon back catalogues, SpongeBob in roughly every dialect, and — on the Paramount+ with Showtime tier — Showtime originals and the live Showtime linear feed. Live CBS, CBS Sports HQ, ET Live, and a rotating set of free FAST channels stream from the Live tab without leaving the app.
Sports is the part the marketing leans hardest on. UEFA Champions League, Europa League, NWSL, and the SEC on CBS are all in here, along with the NFL on CBS for users in the right region. Picture-in-picture works on iPhone and iPad, AirPlay and Chromecast are both supported, and downloads for offline viewing are tier-gated to the Showtime plan.
Profiles, parental controls, and a Kids mode are first-class. Continue Watching syncs across devices reliably enough that you can start an episode on the Apple TV app, finish it on iPhone, and not see the same fifteen seconds twice.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
The catalogue is genuinely deep. The Paramount film vault — Indiana Jones, Mission: Impossible, The Godfather, A Quiet Place, Top Gun, the Transformers run — sits next to a CBS scripted library that other streamers have been quietly licensing from for a decade. Star Trek alone justifies the subscription for a non-trivial audience, and the post-2023 Showtime tier folded in Yellowjackets, Billions, The Chi, Dexter, and the entire Showtime documentary slate without a second login.
Pricing is the other quiet win. The two-tier structure — an ad-supported Essential plan and a Paramount+ with Showtime premium plan — undercuts most of the majors, and the annual prepay knocks the effective cost down further. The post-Skydance leadership has so far resisted the temptation to raise prices to Netflix levels, which is more restraint than its peers have shown.
ROOM TO IMPROVE
The app still feels like CBS Interactive built it. Navigation leans on horizontal carousels that scroll forever, the search index lags behind the catalogue by a beat, and recommendations rarely surface anything you didn't already know was here. The "For You" row is a polite fiction. Compare it to the Max or Disney+ home screen and the difference in editorial curation is immediate.
Live TV is where the seams show worst. Channel switching can take ten seconds, the program guide is buried two taps deep, and live sports streams occasionally fall behind the broadcast feed badly enough that a neighbour's TV will spoil the play. The Essential tier carries ads even on on-demand content that has no commercial breaks in the source, and the ad load during live events is identical to broadcast — which is the point, but it's worth knowing before you sign up expecting a streaming-native experience.
CONCLUSION
If you grew up on CBS, care about Star Trek, or want a single subscription that covers a real film vault and the Showtime drama slate, Paramount+ is the most catalogue-per-dollar of any major streamer right now. If you want a streaming app that feels designed in this decade — fast search, smart recommendations, a polished live experience — keep Max or Apple TV+ in the rotation alongside it. The post-Skydance era is still early, and how Ellison's team handles the app itself, not just the library, will decide whether this stays a 7 or climbs into the 8 band.