CBS All Access, Showtime OTT to Have 25 Million Subs by 2022, Says Acting CEO

Direct-to-consumer services are the “future” of CBS, said acting CEO Joe Ianniello Thursday on a call summarizing Q4 results. “Where others are just announcing their ambitions, we’re hitting our stride, poised to take significant leaps ahead.” The CBS All Access and Showtime over-the-top streaming services have surpassed a combined 8 million subscribers, nearly two years ahead of the original goal of reaching the milestone by the end of 2020, said Ianniello. The new target is to more than triple combined subs for CBS All Access and Showtime OTT to 25 million by 2022, he said. The “rich data” gleaned from the rapid scaling of the two services “gives us valuable intelligence about the subscriber journey,” he said. “We are hearing loud and clear that in addition to watching our content on demand and outside the home, our subscribers love our premium content, and they want more.” CBS All Access will respond by offering a total of 11 original programs in 2019, more than quadruple what it had two years ago, said Ianniello. Showtime OTT will produce 30 percent more hours of original programming in 2019 than in 2018, he said.