Paramount Global’s Bob Bakish Holds Firm on Intl. Expansion Despite Macroeconomic Impact: ‘I’m Not Going to Risk a Strategy That Was Fundamentally Working’

Manori Ravindran
·6 min read
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Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish sees “real opportunity” in a radical alignment of his domestic and international operations, and promises that macroeconomic headwinds won’t impact his content investment in global originals.

Speaking to Variety in London on his way to this weekend’s MTV European Music Awards in Düsseldorf, Germany — a frequent trip for the executive, who’s been a regular at the event for many years — Bakish elaborated on the promised “global mindset” he hinted at on the company’s Q3 earnings call on Nov. 2.

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Said Bakish: “What we’re talking about with international is really creating that global framework around broadcast, cable and streaming, and then linking it to international local execution versus what we had done when I ran international, where it was like the U.S. is over here, and then we have international HQ, and then we figure it out. Now, we are thinking about things truly globally and there’s some real opportunity there.”

Paramount’s net income fell to $231 million in Q3, compared with $538 million in the year-earlier quarter. Total revenue rose 5% to $6.92 billion, compared with $6.61 billion in the year-earlier period, while streamer Paramount+ added 4.6 million subscribers in Q3, taking its total subscriber count to 46 million, and making it the company’s largest streaming platform. Despite the subscriber growth, however, Paramount’s stock opened the regular trading session 8% lower following the company’s Q3 results. On the earnings call, Bakish tried to quell investor concerns, acknowledging the macroeconomic impact and hit to the company’s advertising business, but noting the cyclical nature of such dips.

Asked whether the wider economic changes might alter his ambitious growth strategy for international originals — Paramount hopes to produce 150 originals by 2025 — or its expansion plans in streaming, Bakish balked at the suggestion.

“I’m not going to put at risk a strategy that was fundamentally working, and proving that Paramount’s a world class content company that will have global leadership and streaming, just because there’s a macroeconomic downturn,” he said. “Does it mean we’ve got to tighten our belts and cut some more costs? Yeah. Are we doing some restructuring? Yeah. But it doesn’t change the fact that we’re going to invest in international markets and content for streaming. Because we have to, quite frankly.”

Bakish, the former international boss for Viacom before getting the top CEO job in 2016 and continuing to lead the company following the CBS merger, is striving to run Paramount Global on a “much more integrated basis” that will leverage the content slate globally.

The executive gave the example of CBS hit “Ghosts,” which initially launched as a small British comedy on the BBC in the U.K. Notably, the show didn’t originate from Paramount-backed British broadcaster Channel 5, but in the future, it just might: Content sharing will become more commonplace as international originals out of Paramount grow, says Bakish.

“If you look at the investment required for streaming, the biggest piece is content. So you really want to think about leveraging that slate globally,” says Bakish. “Sure, you’re going to have local content for all the obvious reasons…but you’ve got to think about it globally. You can’t think about it market by market. You won’t be successful.”

As for how much Paramount will be investing in the international cable network business the company was built on, Bakish remains determined to follow through on a “multi-platform execution,” rather than focusing solely on a global streaming play.

“We talked about that as a real advantage two years ago with the merger of Viacom, CBS and the launch of Paramount+ a year and a half ago. And at the time we did that, it was definitely not in vogue. People were like, ‘No, the whole world is streaming, forget about it.’ And the reality is, I think we’ve proven certainly in the last year, that there really is advantage to multi-platform execution.”

There are advantages on the content side with libraries, says Bakish, but also in marketing. “You see that in the U.K. where if you watch Channel 5, we’re definitely driving people to Paramount+ as well,” he says.

“When I look at our network portfolios, it’s not only about driving streaming, it’s about also the value of that platform. We’re very much in the television game. Is the ecosystem growing? No, it’s not growing, but it’s a big ecosystem, and it has economic value, content value and promotional value, so we’re continuing to be focused on it.

“We have these duelling objectives of earnings and cash flow from traditional media as we simultaneously build a globally scale asset and streaming. We’ve got to do both, and we are doing both.”

Paramount+ is currently active in Canada, Australia, Latin America, U.K. and Ireland, the Nordics, Baltics, and South Korea, with major launches coming next month in Germany and France. However, it’s not Paramount Global’s only streaming offer in Europe: The company partnered on a joint venture with Comcast to launch SkyShowtime this fall in select European markets (the Nordics first, and the Netherlands in Q4). Eventually, it will also launch in Spain and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

Does a second streaming offering perhaps confuse international consumers about the Paramount brand? It may not be ideal, says Bakish, but it makes financial sense.

“We’re funding half the venture versus the whole venture. For these second-tier markets, you want to be in them from a content, amortization and subscriber basis. But in a world where streaming is very expensive, we felt it was important to preserve capital for the really big opportunities and pursue some of these smaller opportunities in a more capital efficient way. And that’s Sky Showtime,” explains Bakish.

“When you’re really building a brand, you don’t really build it on a global basis, you build it on a market basis. So there is some inherent trade-off in having a different brand in select markets, but I think on balance, when you consider all the elements of SkyShowtime, it’s a positive trade off.”

Earlier this week, Paramount moved its oversight of VH1 — the network behind the “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “Love and Hip Hop” franchises, among others — over to the BET Media Group, which means it’s no longer a sister network to MTV, as it has been since the channel’s launch in 1985 as “Video Hits One.” Variety understands the move was made to counter program and better target a shared demographic, but the brands will remain distinct. Other restructuring in the works includes the merger of Paramount+ and Showtime, which is expected to go ahead.

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