Studio SVOD Roundup

More than any other Studio SVOD, with perhaps the exception of StarzPlay (admittedly on a much smaller scale), Disney is all in with the vertical integration of its content. Virtually everything that comes from the Disney Platform Distribution catalogue is destined to debut on Disney+ outside the US whether it’s commissioned by Disney+, Hulu, ABC, Freeform or FX. The enhancement of the SVOD abroad with Star changed the distributor’s levels of vertical integration almost overnight.

The recent rebrand of ViacomCBS to Paramount signifies a renewed commitment from the studio to the SVOD but so far its approach to vertical integration has been disparate and varies from territory to territory. While more recent developments such as its imminent launch in the UK seem to show the beginnings of a more unified international strategy, the sheer volume of titles from the Paramount catalogue gives the studio the potential to play multiple angles, supporting their SVOD service while also bringing in revenue with sales to third party services increasingly starved of US content.

While each Studio faces its own challenges to succeed in the streaming wars we are nonetheless beginning to see an acceleration in all of their strategies. Even those that are perhaps not quite all in like Paramount and NBCUniversal are finding innovative ways to expand, with the studios coming together to launch their joint venture Sky Showtime in the European markets later this year. Their overall effect on the landscape puts many other services, both linear and VOD, in a precarious position, not least because their previously steady pipelines for US content are now being diverted away from them. The opportunity therefore lies with those few distributors who do not have their own D2C service (or those that haven’t been acquired by one) to entice these third party services with their own content.