ViacomCBS’s Parts Might Add Up to a Greater Whole

ViacomCBS announced that it is launching a new subscription video service that will expand on CBS All Access.

Key details for ViacomCBS:
1) 140K episodes of premium TV content
2) 3.6K film titles
3) $13B+ content spend
4) 15% share of prime-time viewing
5) $16/subscriber/month from pay-TV providers
6) ≈ 5M subscribers for CBS All Access
7) ≈ 5M subscribers for Showtime OTT
8) 20M monthly users for PlutoTV
9) $8.6B (31% of total) in affiliate revenue

Why this matters: Cord-cutting (see above) is reducing the number of households that generate affiliate fees for networks like CBS.  Building a direct-to-consumer relationship for both subscriptions and advertising is the future for these companies.

Quick math on the impact on affiliate fees from cord-cutting:
1) $16/month/subscriber for ViacomCBS
2) $196/year/subscriber
3) 3.7M subscribers left the pay-TV ecosystem in 2019
4) $733M in potential lost affiliate revenue

Monthly per-subscriber fees:
1) Walt Disney – $22
2) ViacomCBS – $16
3) AT&T – $13
4) Comcast – $7
5) Fox – $7
6) Discovery – $4

Potential assets for new streaming service include:
1) CBS
2) MTV
3) Nickelodeon
4) BET
5) Comedy Central
6) Paramount Pictures
7) Showtime
8) PlutoTV

PlutoTV monthly viewers (YoY growth):
1) 2016 – 5M
2) 2018 – 12M
3) 2019 – 20M (↑ 67%)

ViacomCBS streaming revenue (YoY growth):
1) 2019 – $1.6B
2) 2020P – $2.2B (↑ 67%)

Reply

or to participate.