CBS’ Moonves: All Access to be packaged with Showtime, making gobs of money

CBS Corp.’s SVOD platforms CBS All Access and Showtime Anytime are pacing ahead of projections to add 8 million subscribers combined by 2020. The company also revealed plans to bundle the two services. 

“Our OTT services are also growing faster each quarter, and we've yet to launch our marquee franchises, 'Twin Peaks' on Showtime and 'Star Trek: Discovery' on CBS All Access, not to mention the first full season of the NFL coming up on All Access as well. So we expect healthy subscriber growth to continue,” said CBS COO Joe Ianniello, during his company’s first-quarter earnings call Thursday.

RELATED: CBS retrans revenues grow 28% amid declines during Super Bowl-less Q1

CBS is not only bullish about the potential of adding original series to its growing SVOD services, but it’s also excited about the subscriber-growth potential of live sports.

During the call, one analyst suggested that the two SVOD platforms had led to a 20% spike in “affiliate subscription revenue” for CBS.

“You're in the neighborhood,” shot back CBS chief executive Les Moonves. “Look, we only had the NFL on All Access for the last two weeks [of the regular season], and it spiked a lot during those two weeks, which leads us to be very excited about having it for a full season, able to promote it.”

As for the bundling, CBS said the All Access/Showtime package will debut next week.

“We are ahead of our goals and we said we have two terrific offerings here,” Moonves added. “Why not put them out together? They will be discounted, but not a great deal. Not a great deal. It just makes sense. It just makes sense to have them there together, and they're both top-notch products and it's not about pricing as much as convenience.”