Paramount+ and the address that changes with the device

Most services print one address for every television, whatever it is. Paramount+ prints eleven, one per device family, and publishes the list on its own pages so that a viewer whose screen has cleared can still find the right one.

The device word in the address — roku, firetv, appletv — does not change who owns the page. Every one of them is a path on paramountplus.com, and a viewer who reads only the part before the slash reads the same name eleven times.

What happens on each side

Paramount+’s page headed Device activation URLs lists the addresses in full: paramountplus.com/appletv, /androidtv, /firetv, /roku, /xbox, /playstation, /samsungtv, /vizio, /lg, and, written out with the www, /cox for Cox Contour boxes and /vidaa for VIDAA-based sets. Each page is described in the same words — for the Android TV one, Enter the activation code for your Android TV — and each asks for the Paramount+ sign-in and the code the app has printed.

The reason for eleven addresses rather than one is on Paramount+’s side of the exchange. The device name tells Paramount+ which app is waiting, and lets the page phrase its prompt for that platform, but the code is what ties the app to the account, and the code would be accepted by the same service whichever page received it. What matters to the viewer is the part before the slash: paramountplus.com, every time.

Paramount+ is not offered in every country under its own name. Opened from parts of Europe, paramountplus.com answers with a page explaining that its programmes are carried there by SkyShowtime instead, and lists the countries. A viewer in one of those countries has no Paramount+ app to sign in, and a screen there printing a Paramount+ address is describing another market’s app.

As with the other services, the plan — with or without advertisements — is chosen and billed in the account, or comes with a bundle bought elsewhere, such as a Walmart+ membership. The device pages take a sign-in and a code; none of them takes a card.

Easily confused with

• Addresses that move the device word in front of the name (roku-paramountplus.example, paramountplus-firetv.example) or drop the plus (paramount-activate.example). Paramount+’s registrable name is paramountplus.com and the device word follows the slash.
• Pages offering a universal activation code or a Paramount+ activation service. The code belongs to the app that printed it and is entered on the address that app printed; there is no universal code.
• Confusing the SkyShowtime markets with a Paramount+ failure. In those countries paramountplus.com correctly says the service is not offered under that name.

Range

Devices on which this code sign-in appears, as named on the service’s own pages: