HBO Max & Paramount+ Combo Would Dominate Unscripted Market

As Paramount prepares to take over Warner Bros., the likely merger of HBO Max and Paramount+ would dominate the unscripted television market, new research has found.

Paramount CEO David Ellison revealed in March that he plans to merge the two streaming services giving a combined platform over 200M subscribers.

There’s been much discussion what a streamer that brings together shows such as HBO’s The White Lotus and Harry Potter with Paramount’s Taylor Sheridan library such as Landman and CBS titles such as Tracker would look like.

But the two services also feature a raft of unscripted and reality content and the combination would create a dominant player in that sector.

Research house Parrot Analytics has found that if the two services had been combined in the first quarter of 2026, it would have a 25.1% share of demand for unscripted content across the SVOD services.

This puts it above a combination of Hulu and Disney+, which comes in at 22.3%, Netflix’s 14.9% share, Prime Video with 13.3% and Peacock with 11%.

On their own, HBO Max was responsible for 18.7% of that demand with Paramount+ taking 6.5%.

Parrot’s methodology is a collection of data points including video consumption, social media engagement and research actions such as reading about new shows.

“While prestige scripted series often get the headlines, unscripted content provides the low-cost engagement bedrock that makes these massive platform combinations financially viable,” Chris Hamilton, Industry Insights Manager at Parrot Analytics told Deadline.

This comes despite the fact that the show with the biggest demand on the streaming services in the first quarter was NBC’s The Voice, which streams on Peacock. That title had nearly 45 times more demand than the average title in the market.

CBS’ Survivor, which is celebrating its 50^th season, was second with 38 times more interest than the average, followed by Bravo’s controversial reality series Summer House, which streams on Peacock and had 36 times more demand than the average show.

Parrot also includes late-night and current affairs shows in its data with The Daily Show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and 60 Minutes contributing to the Paramount+/HBO Max numbers with The Tonight Show contributing to Peacock’s total and Jimmy Kimmel Live! helping the Disney numbers.

The revelation is somewhat of a surprise as neither platform is a huge buyer of unscripted content. HBO Max has a handful of unscripted originals such as Conan O’Brien Must Go and The Great Pottery Throwdown but has largely stopped ordering originals since 2022. It relies on titles from cable networks such as TLC’s 90 Day Fiancé universe, TBS’ Impractical Jokers, Discovery shows such as Naked and Afraid and Investigation Discovery’s slate of true-crime docs.

Jason Sarlanis, President, TBS, TNT, truTV, ID & HLN, Linear & Streaming at Warner Bros. Discovery recently told Deadline that he is still “open for business” despite the merger and the fact that Discovery Global was set to be spun off as a separate company featuring its portfolio of cable networks.

He pointed to shows such as TBS prank show Foul Play with Anthony Davis, which came out of the Impractical Jokers universe. “What I think we’ll be looking for, in an ideal world, is finding companions for those two shows. We haven’t picked up more Foul Play yet but I’m hoping we do,” he said at Deadline’s Reality TV Summit.

Sarlanis added that Investigation Discovery has become more than just a cable network. “We really have transformed that network into being a content engine for streaming, and so getting those massive documentary ‘docbuster’ events to break through, both on the streaming platform, but using the network as a barker to bring that voracious audience to this new platform has been our strategy.”

But he noted that the definition of unscripted television is “shifting”. “What was the bread and butter of high-volume, in some ways, low-cost cable has been totally consumed now by content creators. That’s that is what unscripted has become,” he said.

Paramount+, meanwhile, only just returned to the world of buying unscripted originals since Ellison took over the company. It bought dating reality series Making Love and Kim Kardashian-produced Team Moms. Otherwise, it relies on titles such as RuPaul’s Drag Race as well as CBS shows such as Big Brother, The Amazing Race and Padma Lakshmi’s new series America’s Culinary Cup.

Mitch Graham, EVP, Alternative Programming at CBS told Deadline that unscripted is a priority for the network. “We still consider it a strength, it’s an exciting time. We have Survivor 50, and it’s rare to be part of something like that,” he said. [Unscripted] has always been a priority for us and something we’ll continue to invest in.”

America’s Culinary Cup was one of a few new unscripted shows for the network that also included Taylor Sheridan-produced The Road.

Graham said that he’d been tasked with finding a cooking show for some time. “I think we hear 1,000 cooking shows and we couldn’t really figure out what that would be for us. How’s it going to connect with our audience? How’s it going to work on broadcast and streaming?,” he added. “Part of that is we’re also looking at our schedule and trying to figure out where we can place things.”

Graham is somewhat genre-agnostic when searching for his next show. “If you look at Survivor and Big Brother and The Amazing Race, it’s really just trying to find shows that have got universal themes and great storytelling. The audience can connect with these players and the journeys they go on,” he added.