Viacom to Launch Streaming Service Later This Year

Viacom has been limiting its content licensing to third-party subscription VOD services in anticipation of the direct-to-consumer streaming service it plans to launch later this year, CEO Bob Bakish said on an earnings call Thursday. Chief Financial Officer Wade Davis said it will be “fundamentally different” from what it offers MVPDs, with at least one such provider looking to incorporate it into its offerings. Bakish said Viacom continues to have conversations about deals with streaming MVPD services, with it currently on DirecTV Now, Sling and Philo. Bakish said the company is in content licensing talks with mobile carriers. "This is the point that upends the whole argument of the decline of pay TV,” given the ubiquity of mobile subscribers and carriers looking for content differentiation, Bakish said. The programmer reported revenue in the quarter ended Dec. 31 was $3.07 billion, down 8 percent, due largely to lower TV affiliate revenue and motion picture performance. Barclays analyst Kannan Venkateshwar emailed investors that results reinforce that Viacom needs "an inorganic path out of its problems" and that possibly combining with CBS (see 1802010056) would buy it time but won't solve core performance issues. Eventually, he said, CBS/Viacom would need to look at other partnerships to get scale needed to survive. Viacom stock closed Thursday up 7.2 percent to $32.71.