ViacomCBS announces strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services for global content delivery

ViacomCBS + Amazon Web Services announced a new partnership

DECEMBER 14, 2020 - ViacomCBS has made a major strategic move that will benefit its growing streaming video-on-demand services. Last week, it announced a new partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) that would see all their content - globally - moved to the world’s leading cloud platform.

In a statement, the company said, “ViacomCBS will migrate operations for its entire broadcast footprint, which spans 425 linear television channels and 40 global data and media centers, to the world’s leading cloud - one of the first such large-scale transformations in the media and entertainment industry.” The migration, they say, will help drive efficiency and cost savings, one of the key promises they made to shareholders of both Viacom and CBS prior to the merger last December.

But it’s not just efficiency they’re going for. The migration to AWS will also potentially help accelerate the company’s plans to expand its streaming services globally. They say that the migration will “simplify access to content for its broadcasting partners, and reliably deliver new viewing experiences to consumers by broadcasting and streaming on any device.” While the wording here is vague, it does imply that using AWS will eliminate a key barrier for new implementations: end user technology.

Greg Pearson, Vice President, Worldwide Commercial Sales at AWS, said of the move, “Moving its broadcast media operations to AWS gives ViacomCBS the agility to lower costs, take advantage of new distribution models, and drive efficiency and innovation across its entire global media operations. Using AWS’s proven operational experience and unparalleled portfolio of services, ViacomCBS can create and deliver new video content experiences with the utmost reliability and reach audiences no matter what platform they use.”

The benefits of AWS for ViacomCBS don’t end there, though. They also emphasized the benefits to the end user experience. ViacomCBS intends to leverage AWS’s machine learning technologies to push the envelope on what they can deliver for both consumers and the advertising and licensing partners that fund the operation. Phil Wiser, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at ViacomCBS characterized it as building on the disruptions they’re already bringing to the streaming market: “With AWS, we will be able to automate and streamline our processes for content production, licensing, and distribution to consumer streaming services and innovate faster to deliver improved customer experiences. [...] AWS’s deep portfolio of services will help us unleash the power of content in new and interesting ways that benefit our advertisers, licensing partners, and streaming services.”

ViacomCBS are charging ahead boldly with the global expansion of their streaming offering. Pluto TV, their free, ad-supported video-on-demand service is already available worldwide, and the company announced in September that it would be growing their subscription video-on-demand service, CBS All Access, into a global offering, along with rebranding it to Paramount+. Paramount+ is expected to debut in the United States early Q1 2021, and internationally (starting with Australia, Latin America, and the Nordic countries) sometime next year as well.