Robert Bakish, President and CEO of ViacomCBS

In this episode of Talks at GS, ViacomCBS CEO Robert Bakish discusses the expanding opportunities of streaming, the economics of content creation and the future of the entertainment industry.

On the acceleration of streaming: “COVID has certainly been a tailwind for streaming. But fundamentally, our momentum, our growth is driven by our product resonating with consumers. And you look at CBS All Access growth, that’s been driven by this unique combination of sports, news, entertainment, hit originals including Star Trek: Picard, The Good Fight. We added Viacom and Paramount content for a preview launch we did at the end of July. That, in turn, has contributed significantly to consumption on the platform and created real incremental momentum in August, which continues into September. And we’ve got a lot more content coming. So, we feel very good about the growth trajectory we’re on at CBS All Access and what’s to come.”

On the economics of content creation: “Our combination of studios, networks, and streaming is really synergist. I know that’s a word that people wonder about, but it’s really true in this case because it enables us to have efficiency on cross-company uses of assets.”

This episode was filmed as part of the 2020 Goldman Sachs Research Communacopia Conference.