ViacomCBS Inc. (VIAC) Presents at UBS 2021 Global TMT Virtual Conference (Transcript)

ViacomCBS Inc. (VIAC) UBS Global TMT Virtual Conference December 7, 2021 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Bob Bakish - CEO

Conference Call Participants

John Hodulik - UBS

John Hodulik

Good morning, everybody. I’m John Hodulik, Media and Telecom Analyst here at UBS. Welcome to day two of the UBS Global TMT Conference. Very pleased to announce that our morning keynote speaker today is Bob Bakish, the CEO of ViacomCBS. Bob, thanks for being here.

Bob Bakish

Hey, John. Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

Question-and-Answer Session

Q - John Hodulik

So, we’ve got about 40-45 minutes for Q&A. I’ve got a bunch of questions that I’m going to run through. And again, as always, if you have any questions out there in the audience, please use the app and send them in and I’ll work them into the conversation.

So, Bob, obviously an eventful year, a lot has happened in 2021. Can you start out today by talking about sort of key accomplishments for 2021 as well as the major priorities as we look out to ‘22?

Bob Bakish

‘21 has been an interesting year for all of us. But as I look at ViacomCBS, I’d note a couple things. One is, we really have a content engine that’s firing on all cylinders. You see that with strength at CBS, at Showtime and our basic cable networks and then film.

And the film side, particularly day-and-date with streaming, which I guess brings me to the second thing I’d say, which is, we’ve seen real momentum on the streaming business, that’s both Paramount+ and really Pluto driving pay and free streaming respectively for us. In fact, as I look at the fourth quarter that we’re in, total streaming revenue for the Company will now cross a $5 billion run rate. So, we’re getting somewhere significant pretty quickly. And we’re set up well