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Viacom CBS to launch new streaming service, replacing 10 All Access

Ten’s parent company, Viacom CBS, has announced it will launch a new streaming platform early next year, replacing 10 All Access locally, and exclusively premiering new Showtime series like Halo and American Rust.

Existing Showtime content including Homeland, Billions, and Shameless currently sits on – and, as Mumbrella understands, will remain on – competitor platform Stan.

The company said it plans to “match or exceed” streaming competitors – which, in addition to Stan, include Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, and Apple TV+ – with a “world-class” offering: thousands of hours of content that spans categories including movies, scripted series, kids, comedy, entertainment, reality, and specialist factual content.

It was recently announced that the book American Rust would be made into a Showtime TV show, starring Jeff Daniels. The show will premiere exclusively on the new streaming platform

It will house CBS All Access original content such as Guilty Party and The Harper House, movies from Paramount Pictures, and TV shows from Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and Paramount Network. In some markets, Viacom CBS International Studios Originals will also be available.

The roll out of the new, as yet unnamed, streaming service – which was announced on the company’s Q2 earnings call overnight – will start in the first quarter of 2021, prioritising the Australian, Latin American, and Nordic markets, where Viacom CBS hopes to become a streaming leader. In Australia, 10 All Access will be rebranded and subsumed.

“Launching a super-sized premium streaming service will be a game-changer for Viacom CBS and can help us become as powerful a player in international streaming as we are in linear TV,” said Viacom CBS Networks International’s president and CEO, David Lynn.

“We will market a world-class content offering at a very competitive price, and we’re convinced it will have significant appeal for audiences everywhere and strong growth potential in every market.”

The platform will be powered by the technology and platform that powers CBS All Access, and the launch rolled out through existing infrastructure. Viacom CBS said this would “improve cost-efficiency and allow investment to be focused on-screen”.

The name of the platform will be announced closer to its launch, and the business will work with existing distribution partners, get new distributors on board, and market the service directly to consumers.

“With more than 200m new streaming subscriptions due to come online internationally by 2025, we’re very confident we can build a meaningful subscriber base in the next few years,” added Pierluigi Gazzolo, Viacom CBS Network International’s president of streaming.

“Viacom CBS is one of a very small handful of elite content companies with broad enough content pipelines and deep enough content libraries to lead in all segments of the video entertainment market.”

Alongside the streaming service’s launch, the company’s free streaming service Pluto TV will expand. Pluto TV exists in the UK and Germany, and recently debuted in Spanish-speaking Latin American countries. At the end of the year, it will expand further into Brazil and Spain, with France and Italy to follow in 2021.

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