CBS has made a deal to have its programming be a part of Sony’s upcoming broadband TV service, according to CBS CEO Les Moonves.
Speaking on CBS’s third-quarter earnings call with analysts, Moonves announced that CBS has “reached a historic over-the-top agreement with Sony for rights inside the home.”
Viacom, which like CBS is controlled by Sumner Redstone, previously announced a deal to be on the Sony platform.
“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."
“We're also excited to be partnering with CBS as well and will disclose details later on,” a Sony spokesman said.
Moonves also announced that CBS on Thursday will be 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.
The news service will be ad supported, Moonves said.
And Moonves said that Showtime would be offering a domestic over the top product. “We can says 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.
