• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, October 9, 2025

Paramount Advertising's new “Streaming Fixed Units” beg deeper questions you might want to know the answers to.

The new advertising innovation gives brands top-level advertising placement -- the “A” positions” -- in the first seven days of new episode premieres of shows such as “Tulsa King” and “Landman” and “Mayor of Kingstown.”

Paramount’s push is that these new episodes of shows are not simulcast around many cable networks or streamers that Paramount Skydance owns. These shows start out only on Paramount+ -- which typically pulls in higher viewership.

The idea is that hardcore fans of the show want the immediacy of seeing episodes as soon as they debut. This is valuable advertising engagement.

This is not positioned for brands that would then in theory buy any less programmatic gross ratings points -- on other episodes or in lower ad positions during an advertising pod. The fixed units will be more of a complement.

According to reports, Paramount says that brands from ad categories buying in to the streaming fixed inventory include financial services, alcoholic beverages, retail, CPG, artificial intelligence, household products, software & apps, auto, and casual dining.

The idea is that top “A” position and placement, which seemingly would be unmovable, are worth something more. For sure, in the ever expanding world of streaming -- which can be a dense jungle of ad inventory -- this seems like a good idea.

Downsides could include that brands using the fixed units could lose needed audience targeting -- as well as potentially being able to offer up different ad creative to viewers.

In addition, because the duration is limited to seven days, brands could lose out on potential viewers/customers who watch in the first 30 days of release.

For brands that have longer-term media campaigns, this would not work so well. Also consider that high cost would not be too attractive to smaller-budget media brands looking for some decent impact.

Media campaign post analysis would also be a bit tricky -- trying to determine different levels of engagement in the first seven days, versus the rest of the month or more.

At the same time, one might wonder whether they devalue other flexible, programmatic inventory that brands buy that don’t run in fresh, new episodes.

So streaming fixed-unit plans may now seem very fluid to some.