ViacomCBS wants to prove to skeptics it finally understands streaming

In case you’re nonetheless uncertain of what Paramount Plus is, don’t fear — you’ll be taught quickly, as a result of ViacomCBS goes to spend a great portion of 2021 making an attempt to get you to join it.

Paramount Plus is ViacomCBS’s rebrand of its present streaming service, CBS All Entry. The revamped streamer will carry stay sports activities (together with NFL video games that air on CBS), stay information, and 1000’s of movies and TV exhibits from its networks. These embrace Nickelodeon, MTV, BET, Comedy Central, and each present and library programming from CBS. As the corporate prepares to finish 2020 with “at the least” 19 million paid subscribers in america, and plans to broaden in 2021, executives used their time on an earnings name at the moment to try to persuade skeptical traders and analysts they know what they’re doing — ironic contemplating CBS All Entry is among the earliest main streamers.

“Streaming is clearly an enormous alternative,” ViacomCBS’s new chief monetary officer, Navreen Chopra, mentioned on the corporate’s third-quarter earnings name. “It’s one the place we’ve bought a number of years of expertise and growing momentum.”

There are two predominant streaming areas of focus heading into 2021: Paramount Plus and Pluto TV. The latter is its ad-supported free streaming service that the corporate sees as straight promoting income play. The platform has greater than 28 million month-to-month lively customers, up 57 p.c 12 months over 12 months. Individuals enroll to make use of the service, and ViacomCBS sells adverts. It’s a platform that CEO Bob Bakish mentioned he “couldn’t be happier” to have acquired in late 2018.

Paramount Plus, nevertheless, is what is going to compete with providers like Peacock, HBO Max, Disney Plus, and Netflix. Determining “lean into streaming much more,” as Bakish mentioned he needed to do, comes with deciding what doesn’t make sense to proceed. A part of that features providing stay TV, like sports activities and information. Different strikes embrace shutting smaller area of interest platforms like MTV Hits. Though the CEO didn’t converse to different area of interest gamers (like NickHits or Comedy Central Now), the concept appears to be that the content material will fold into Paramount Plus. Companies like NickHits can be found on extra normal digital retailers like Amazon, the place they are often bought for a further month-to-month charge on prime of Amazon Prime’s membership charge.

One huge distinction that can separates ViacomCBS is how the corporate is considering its content material. The corporate will proceed to license its sequence and movies to different corporations. Notably, South Park airs on HBO Max — a direct competitor — however the deal introduced in a reported $500 million. Fashionable exhibits like Avatar: The Final Airbender and The Legend of Korra had been additionally licensed to Netflix. Weekly breakdowns from Nielsen of prime streaming titles within the US routinely have ViacomCBS applications like Shameless, Felony Minds, and NCIS listed, even when these applications air on completely different platforms.

That doesn’t imply Paramount Plus received’t depend on exclusives; it is going to. Originals and exclusives deliver individuals in, and libraries retain subscribers. Bakish’s argument is their libraries have content material to permit extra licensing by non-exclusive offers (like Legend of Korra on Netflix) to generate extra income.

“Now we have a movie library of 4,000 titles, a TV library of 140,000 episodes — we are able to’t hold all that for ourselves,” Bakish mentioned. “It doesn’t make sense. It’s an excessive amount of. Now we have robust demand from third events as a result of we’re confirmed hitmakers, and that demand, we are able to reliably and profitably monetize it.”

With Paramount Plus set to debut in early 2021, and Pluto TV persevering with to broaden into new nations, ViacomCBS is placing its eggs in streaming’s basket. Whether or not or not ViacomCBS manages to quell analysts’ and traders’ issues about having the ability to compete with a few of the largest gamers on the desk will take time to play out, however it’s clear that Bakish and his crew are all in.