ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish downplays concept of a merger to get scale in streaming – TechCrunch

ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish this morning downplayed his firm’s curiosity in a possible merger — like one with its companion Comcast. On the WSJ Tech Reside convention at the moment, the media firm exec mentioned the corporate’s present technique was to concentrate on its “natural plan” in streaming, which might be one of the best path ahead to create shareholder worth. He additionally claimed it was nonetheless “early days” for its new service Paramount+, basically downplaying the concepts {that a} merger can be needed for the service to succeed.

Pressed for touch upon the matter, Bakish didn’t give a direct reply as as to if the corporate is contemplating any M&A offers, and as a substitute touted the expansion Paramount+ has been seeing all year long.

“Paramount+ is seven months previous. So it’s very early days,” he mentioned. “Now we have good subscriber acquisition in Q1 and Q2, frankly on the again of a reasonably weak content material slate,” he continued, including that the slate would develop considerably later within the yr. “We see good momentum forward of us. And that’s the lane I proceed to really feel we needs to be centered on,” Bakish famous.

In fact, describing Paramount+ as a brand new service is barely considerably correct.

In actuality, the service is the successor to the corporate’s earlier streaming endeavor, CBS All Entry, which rebranded and expanded to incorporate Viacom content material following the 2019 CBS and Viacom merger. In a way, it’s a brand new product with a bigger library, however the core service has been round for years. And, as of but, it has not been capable of pose a viable menace to prime rivals like Netflix or Disney+, for instance, which have 209 million+ and 116 million subscribers, respectively. Actually, CBS traditionally wouldn’t even escape numbers for CBS All Entry individually from Showtime. That custom continues at ViacomCBS which introduced in Q2 the 2 platforms — Paramount+ and Showtime OTT — had collectively topped 42 million paid world subscribers within the quarter.

That’s led to the corporate in search of different methods to drive progress — together with, just lately, by way of worldwide joint ventures, like its new partnership with Comcast on SkyShowtime in Europe, for example.

Regardless of Bakish’s remarks downplaying M&A, Comcast’s NBCU and ViacomCBS had been speaking concerning the numerous methods they may work collectively, studies have mentioned. This has included discussions of providing a bundle of their streaming companies, Peacock and Paramount+. However a merger or acquisition may at all times be another choice. Whereas these kinds of offers are extra advanced, the query stays as to how both service will get scale within the present market by going it alone.

Bakish, talking at at the moment’s occasion, appeared to dismiss the concept that M&A was the way in which to go for now, nevertheless.

“On the finish of the day, we’re centered on shareholder worth creation. As we take a look at the panorama at the moment, significantly the place our inventory trades in the mean time, we imagine the strongest path to shareholder worth creation is executing in opposition to our natural plan in streaming,” he mentioned.

Additional pressed on the concept of a horizontal merger with the intention to obtain quicker scale, Bakish recalled that not all offers work out as anticipated.

“Consolidation has been true in enterprise for a really very long time, whether or not that’s vertical mergers, horizontal mergers — that’s a tried and true enterprise approach. By the way in which, quite a lot of offers get unwound too once they didn’t work out nicely. In the end it comes all the way down to execution,” he mentioned. He then touted the corporate’s asset base which features a Hollywood movie studio, 100-year previous library, and vital ongoing manufacturing.

“So I take a look at that content material asset and deploying in opposition to a  streaming platform — on this case, Paramount+ — there’s actual momentum already and there’s actual progress forward. And I feel that’s a really compelling lane to be in,” he mentioned.