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Business

Viacom CEO downplays ‘skinny bundles’ and cord-cutting

By
Claire Atkinson
Published Sep. 18, 2015, 10:40 p.m. ET

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman wants Wall Street to “stop swiping” at the media giant’s stock price.

Shareholders, staring at a 43 percent decline in the price of Viacom shares in the past year, have been freaking out about declining ratings at Nickelodeon and MTV and the upcoming distribution negotiations with satellite operator Dish, which can further deflate their holdings.

But Dauman told the analysts that Viacom was well positioned for a comeback.

The 61-year-old CEO said Viacom was well-insulated from the threat of cable’s so-called “skinny bundles,” and cord cutting.

“This is not a new thing,” said Dauman, speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia confab. “[Distributors] are echoing us. The best value is the bigger bundle.”

As far as the threat of cord-cutters, Dauman said the small subscriber declines would likely stabilize.

The Viacom boss, who’s viewed as a numbers guy with little feel for the content side of the business, needs new hits across his networks, which also include Comedy Central, Spike and BET, but it’s not clear how Viacom will profit from them while so many youngsters are streaming their favorite shows.

Dauman has led the debut of shows like, “Bella and the Bulldogs,” which, he said, is doing just as well as 2007-12 standout hit “iCarly” did at a similar point in its life — but audiences are consuming them differently.

Dauman however, was pressed by a Goldman Sachs analyst about how that translated into growing revenue. He responded that marketers were partnering with Viacom to attach themselves to those brands.

He also said there’s a concerted effort to reduce advertising in prime time and also to bring in more event programming such as the successful MTV VMAs, hosted by Miley Cyrus.

Dauman seemed to surprise the analysts by suggesting the wave of consolidation among distributors — such as Altice’s $17.7 billion acquisition of Cablevision — could be a positive for Viacom.

Such concentration usually enables players to get channels for a better price.

When asked about the risk of continued ratings erosion by selling to SVOD players such as Netflix and Hulu, Dauman explained Viacom was seeing good fees and that the company had been smart about licensing noncurrent programming.

Internationally, China is turning into a more lucrative market, he said.

“SVOD is exploding over there. License fees are growing significantly, and there are more players than there are in the US,” he added.