CBS Sees Streaming Competition as Good For Business

Much has been said recently (by me, as well as others) of the impending competition about to descend on the streaming-video-on-demand (or SVOD) industry in the US. Here’s a super-quick recap: Netflix and Amazon Prime Video dominate currently, Disney+ and Apple TV+ are both due to come online later this year, and Disney just bought out Hulu, the other big name in the current market. And every network and their brothers are rolling out streaming-only or over-the-top OTT services, to boot.

But Ad Age brings us a sound bite today from CBS Interactive Chief Operating Officer Marc DeBevoise, who they caught up with at the CBS Upfronts last week. Not only does he think there’s room for everyone, he actually thinks more streaming competition is good for CBS. He said: “We think it is going to deliver a lot more users to the platforms we are already on.... It’s going to do more priming of the pump of people diving into the OTT space.”

He went on to say that he thinks that in the future, consumers could subscribe to more than 10 services each, which is good for CBS. In his words, “We feel like we are on the right rocketship...and headed to good places.”