Viacom chief: “We’re not creating another Netflix”
September 18, 2018
Colin Mann @ RTS London
Bob Bakish, President and CEO of Viacom, has suggested that the programmer’s future streaming services will not attempt to create a Netflix—style platform.
Speaking at the RTS London Conference, Bakish said that Viacom saw the potential for an ad-supported ‘front door’ that would bring traffic into the funnel. “What we’re not doing is looking to create another Netflix,” he asserted. “We see that space as becoming crowded and quite capital-intensive. At the same time, we see a great opportunity to grow through this ad D2C business and through the studio production business, where people all around the world are looking for content in the episodic space, in the film space, in the shorter space,” he noted, adding that with the brands it owned, Viacom was “very well suited” to serving that need.