STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS & HALO hitting British and Irish television in June

Paramount+ has confirmed its launch date in the UK and Republic of Ireland: 22 June. The service will launch both as a stand-alone service and also as part of a Sky Cinema subscription.

Imagesource

The launch roster for the channel will include Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Halo, City on a Hill and The Man Who Fell to Earth. Legacy shows that were formerly on other services will also transfer over, including Star Trek: Discovery, Billions and Yellowjackets.

The stand-alone subscription will be a reasonable £6.99 with the first seven days free, significantly cheaper than Netflix and slightly more expensive than Apple TV+. Pricing for the Republic of Ireland has not yet been confirmed.

The launch date does leave UK and RoI SF fans holding out for Halo (which began airing in the US on 24 March) and Strange New Worlds (which launches this week) some considerable amount of time behind the curve, which is likely to drive up piracy in the meantime.

There have been complaints about the addition of yet another streaming service to the roster. The UK and Ireland currently enjoy using Netflix, Amazon Prime TV, Disney+, NowTV, BritBox and Apple TV+ (alongside the free, homegrown BBC iPlayer and All 4). This isn't as bad as the US, which has several more options (including Paramount+, Peacock and Hulu), but is getting up there. With the recent, significant cost of living increases, viewers are getting choosier about what platforms to keep using and which to drop. It'll be interesting to see if Paramount+ can pick up a significant UK viewer base.