Advanced Television

CBS on Sony OTT, Showtime will go OTT

November 6, 2014

CBS has concluded its deal to have its programming be part of Sony’s upcoming OTT service, says CBS CEO Les Moonves. Speaking during a third-quarter earnings call, Moonves revealed that CBS has “reached a historic over-the-top agreement with Sony for rights inside the home.”

“Sony along with others who are getting into this space represent yet another iteration of content distribution,” Mooves said. “And as new entrants they will pay us higher subscription fees than we’ve ever been paid before. So just like telco came along to compete with cable and satellite, broadband services will help expand the universe of opportunities for companies like CBS that make the best programming. That’s why we remain so confident about our future.”

Moonves also confirmed that CBS is this week launching a new digital news service called CBSN. The service will use all of CBS’s news content and distribute it across digital platforms. “This demonstrates the way we are following our viewers with CBS content wherever they are,” he said.
Moonves also revealed sister company Showtime would be offering a domestic over the top product. “We can say sometime in 2015 there will be some service from Showtime,” he said. HBO last month announced it will be offering a standalone over the top service from HBO.

Moonves said that advertising revenue was up in the third quarter and that he expected it to grow again in the fourth quarter. He said scatter is selling at a premium to upfront prices and with ratings up so far this season “we continue to get the first look at scatter budgets and capture the largest share of dollars of all broadcast networks.”

CBS’s distribution deal with Dish Network expires at the end of the month and CBS expects to get an increase in its retrans payments. “We’re determined to get paid fair value for our programming. We know how to get this done and rest assured we will,” he said.

Categories: Articles, Content, OTT, OTT