Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish reiterated Tuesday that Showtime is no longer capable of standing on its own. But he also underlined how the premium pay TV channel is still very “valuable” to the overall company as a “brand,” so much so that Bakish says Paramount will be franchising out some Showtime IP in the new year.

“It doesn’t make sense to have a fully built-out streaming infrastructure separate for Showtime than Paramount+, so we’re going to bring that together and there are economic benefits associated with it,” Bakish said during his panel at UBS’ Global TMT Conference in New York. “But I want to be clear, the brand still matters. And if anything, I can promise you the slate is going to matter even more. In fact, another thing we’re going to do there is lean more into franchises. We haven’t announced anything on that but we will as we move into 2023.”

Last year, Showtime revived “Dexter” for the limited series “Dexter: New Blood” and is now in its third season of “The L Word” revival “Generation Q.” Paramount Network’s “Yellowstone” and its Paramount+ spinoffs “1883” and “1923” are even more recent examples of the Showtime parent company, as a whole, tripling down on franchising across platforms.

Bakish did not give updated timing on integrating Showtime and Paramount+ further (currently, Showtime is available via its own OTT app and as an app within Paramount+ as part of a bundle) beyond saying that there will be “more to come in 2023.”

“It doesn’t make sense to run Showtime as a 100% standalone organization,” Bakish said. “Certainly the brand is valuable, certainly it stands for a certain type of programming with consumers and its going to continue to and we’ll lean into that — but we don’t have to do it as a standalone, we’re doing it as a part of an integrated strategy and that’s both true on the traditional television side and streaming.”

According to Bakish, the current subscriber base overlap between Showtime and Paramount+ is “relatively minor,” which could lead to growth upon increased integration. “Showtime tends to be, I’m going to generalize, more coastal, more upscale. Paramount tends to be more popular, more the whole country, etc.”

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