Updated: Wish I had a $100 — heck, make that $1,000 — for every time “multi-platform” was used during the q-and-a with Tom Freston, co-COO of the current Viacom and CEO in waiting of the new Viacom that could debut in January. (Maybe the slogan could be “Viacom, the new, the proud, the multi-platform.”) He’s definitely serious about the concept, often shifting questions about the internet specifically to responses about the company’s multi-platform strategy. (THe webcast is here.) From the session:
The “new” Viacom: “will operate very simply on three platforms: television, film, digital interaction” and focus on content creation — “to create content that is great, that works, that is on all existing distribution platforms and emerging ones.” He lists five priorities: Evolve and strengthen existing brands; introduce new brands into the marketplace; aggresively move in to the digital demographic space and extend the positions that we have demograpghically in those areas; revive Paramount Pictures; and be global in everything.
Digital revenue growth: Freston says $500 million in digital media revenues in three years is “easily achievable.” He said MTV Networks already is making more than $100 million worldwide just in the wireless space, that MTV Overdrive is already getting CPMs 3-4 times the TV rate and “we’ve been able to double our growth every month with that service.” Later he said that the company was making $75-100 million in online advertising revenues in the United States and is looking for ways to increase ad inventory. (You can’t add those two numbers together, though, and come up with Viacom’s digital revenues. They don’t represent all of the digital revenues for the company or even for MTV Networks.)
Acqusitions — and the ones that got away: “We’re not really looking to make any big acquisitions. It’s not as if I look at this company and say there’s some huge missing piece here. We’re not going to out and make some multi-billion-dollar acquisition. We’re literally looking at things more in the tuck-in variety, things that really relate to our core businesses or strengthen our core demographics … Basically, the areas we’re looking at would be in the digital space and in cable networks. … There’s been a couple — MySpace and IGN — have been two properties that we did bid on. We did not end up getting these properties; we really couldn’t make it work in our financial metrics, to be honest with you. We’re trying to create shareholder value when we spend this money and we didn’t think at the prices those two companies traded we really would be doing that.” He cited Neopets as an example of a purchase that met those criterion.
Brand over portal: Asked if a portal was in the offing, Freston said it wasn’t the right direction for Viacom. “For some companies, that’s a great strategy. … Our company has been sort of built around a brand phiolsophy and we have what we call the multi-platform strategy where the brand is at the center. There’s not a lot of audience overlap between a lot of these brands. You come into each brand separately and under each brand there will be different tyopes of functionality…. It’s pretty much done by demographics, not a single company portal.”
No MVNO: Freston nixed an MVNO., explaining, “it’s a good business. Our strategy is to partner with people who are already in that business. (Virgin, for instance). We’re probably not going to be in the MVNO business.”
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