ViacomCBS Set To Expand CBS All Access With “House of Brands” Service As It Looks To “Accelerate Momentum In Streaming”

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ViacomCBS has revealed more details about its digital future with plans to expand CBS All Access by launching a “House of Brands” product.

The company said it would look to “accelerate momentum in streaming” after laying out a strategic update as part of its fourth-quarter fiscal 2019 results, the first since it closed the merger between the two companies on December 4.

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It has unveiled a three-pronged approach, one of which is launching a “House of Brands” products that will expand CBS All Access.

The company noted that it is planning to complement its AVOD service Pluto TV and its premium pay Showtime OTT offerings by adding a broad pay offering.

It said it would add the company’s “scaled assets” in film and TV” to CBS All Access and would expand its entertainment offering through on-demand and live experiences both in the U.S. and internationally. It added that it plans to partner with both traditional and new distributors, domestically and internationally going forward.

“Offerings in free, broad pay and premium pay provides opportunity to serve largest potential consumer market while providing benefits in subscriber acquisition, churn and lifetime value,” it noted.

Domestic streaming and digital video business, which includes subscription revenue and digital video advertising, generated approximately $1.6B in revenue over the full year.

More details are expect when CEO Bob Bakish and his colleagues speak on the investor call later this morning.

He is expected to reveal how it will bring its CBS All Access service together with its Viacom assets that include Nickelodeon, BET, MTV and Comedy Central.

The “differentiated” service is set to combine sports, news live viewing and the full breadth and depth of the company’s expanded portfolio across demos, genres and geographies.

The plans have been spearheaded by ViacomCBS’ Chief Digital Officer Marc Debevoise, Pluto TV CEO Tom Ryan and President of U.S. Networks Distribution Ray Hopkins

CBS initially launched CBS All Access in October 2014 and the service airs series including The Good Wife spin-off The Good Fight, Star Trek series Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard and The Twilight Zone. CBS All Access and Showtime have passed 10 million combined subscribers and are on track to hit internal targets of 25 million by 2022

Meanwhile, Viacom bought AVOD service Pluto in January 2019 for $340M.

Separately, the other two planks of its strategic update were to “maximise the power of content”, putting the “full power” of the company behind its biggest priorities, while “applying more rigor to managing content mix, investment and returns” and “unlocking value from biggest revenue lines”. With this, it hopes to drive growth across distribution, ad sales, content licensing and third-party studio production.

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