Viacom to launch its own VoD service in September

Viacom which owns Comedy Central, MTV, and Nickelodeon is all set to launch its own VOD service by September 2018. The increase in cord-cutting and popularity of online video platforms has made the entertainment giant come up with online video streaming service.

While the details of the pricing are not apparent, Viacom certainly isn’t planning on producing a dedicated cord-cutting cable alternative. Leading online video streaming services such as Hulu Live, Fubo, DirecTV Now, and YouTube TV offer an alternative to the traditional cable bundle and are noted for their distribution, rather than the kind of content subscribers get.

Wade Davis, CFO, Viacom, quoted, “The company stressed that the only reason it’s able to launch its own service is that it’s largely steered clear of licensing its content to other streaming services. “It’s really important that we’ve kind of built in that library to be able to use for our own strategic purposes and fuel offerings like this. In terms of the impact on our MVPD community, it’s going to be a fundamentally different product and in fact at least one of our MVPD partners is looking at incorporating this into their broader product as an important complement to their offerings.”