Viacom CEO Bob Bakish hinted at this development during last week’s earnings call, telling analysts and investors that “SVOD is not going to be a significant part of our affiliate revenue” going forward, and that the company would be “highly selective in striking agreements with over the top distributors” in the future.
Hulu will keep rights to some Viacom shows:
- Hit Comedy Central series Inside Amy Schumer, Broad City, Drunk History and Workaholics
- Complete libraries of popular series including Jersey Shore, Key & Peele and Catfish
- Kids programming from Nickelodeon including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Thundermans, Rugrats, Rabbids Invasion, Drake & Josh and Hey Arnold!.
- Hulu will also continue to be the exclusive streaming home to ALL current and library episodes of South Park, one of the biggest animated series of all time.
It seems like this is part of a bigger effort to move away from services like Hulu.
“We will also reinforce the pay TV ecosystem by being highly selective in striking agreements with over the top distributors, confining those deals to largely library content. We do want to support the success of virtual MVPDs, as we have with partners like Sling and DIRECTV NOW, and embrace their roles as catalyst for innovation.” Said Viacom CEO Bob Bakish during their earnings call last week.
Here is more from his phone call.
You know how we used to let people watch some of our best stuff, like “The Daily Show,” either a day after they aired or a few weeks later, on services like Hulu? We’re not going to do that anymore. If they want to watch new Viacom shows they’ll have to pay you or someone else who has the same kind of deal with us that you have.
That doesn’t mean Viacom will stop selling older repeats to people like Amazon. It just means that it’s only going to sell them older repeats, so there’s less threat of cannibalization from their core business: Selling wholesale subscriptions to its bundle of networks to the Comcasts of the world, and selling ads on that stuff as well.
The announcement — which more or less syncs up Viacom with the rest of the big TV guys, including Time Warner and 21st Century Fox and Disney — is part of Bakish’s big plan to fix Viacom.
That’s plan B for Viacom owner Shari Redstone, whose original plan was to merge Viacom with CBS, her other big asset. But CBS CEO Les Moonves didn’t want to deal with Viacom — at least not under the terms Redstone was offering — so it’s Bakish’s problem now.
Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more news, tips, and reviews.
Need cord cutting tech support? Join our new Cord Cutting Tech Support Facebook Group for help.