Peacock's Paramount Deal Seen Typifying Novel ‘Nature’ of Modern Licenses
The ViacomCBS decision to license catalog Paramount TV shows and movies to NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service (see 2007010024) demonstrates “we’re in the content monetization business,” Dan Cohen, president, ViacomCBS Global Distribution Group, told the Digital Entertainment Group’s DEG Expo virtual event Thursday. ViacomCBS also is “very much in the space of using content for our own platforms and services,” he said.
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It's “one of many deals we have done and will continue to do,” said Cohen. The “nature of the deals” has changed significantly in recent years, he said. Programmers used to want content “exclusively,” he said. “Increasingly, in a complex world where everyone of scale has some sort of streaming initiative or service of their own, the deals are much more nonexclusive, co-exclusive. The windows are often shorter."
Cohen’s group looks to license "differently" than perhaps it would have "three to five years ago,” he said. “The Peacock deal in particular is a good example of that. Most of the content on there is shared between Peacock and our own services. Many of the windows on the movies are as short as one month.”
The Peacock accord came together because “I had content I needed to monetize,” said Cohen. “Peacock was getting ready to launch and wanted to put its best foot forward.” Two ViacomCBS-owned TV series, The Affair and Ray Donovan, “really started the conversation,” he said. Both series “remain part of the Showtime ecosystem, but they’re also available on Peacock,” he said. “That’s a model we’re comfortable with.”
The ad-supported VOD business “has exploded,” said Cohen. All AVOD players “are growing,” he said. The revenue “I see is exponentially bigger than it was in 2017 and a lot bigger than it was in 2019,” he said. “We really feel it’s a great business. It’s growing. It’s growing globally.” It can be a “gateway” to subscription VOD, he said.
Many consumers who thought cutting the cord would make their problematic costs disappear “are coming to the realization that, no, that cost is just shifting to streaming service upon streaming service,” said Rob Owen, TV editor for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “They’re getting frustrated with that.”
People have some residual “pain points” when they’re asked about their satisfaction with streaming services, said Jim Willcox, Consumer Reports senior electronics editor. “A lot of people who did cut the cord” are not saving as much money as they thought they would, he said. Consumers also have traded away “convenience and ease of use,” said Willcox. “They may now have to access multiple apps to get everything that they want. They may have to have multiple devices.”