Comcast and ViacomCBS have received full regulatory approval in Europe for SkyShowtime, their upcoming streaming joint venture.
With the thumbs up, the companies are moving ahead with plans to later this year launch SkyShowtime in more than 20 European markets: Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
SkyShowtime will pull together original content and library titles from across NBCUniversal, Sky and ViacomCBS’s portfolios including Showtime, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, Paramount+ Originals, Sky Studios, Universal Pictures and Peacock. It will include first-run, new movies and TV seasons launching every month. The companies said more details including price will be announced later.
Comcast and ViacomCBS have picked Monty Sarhan, former executive vice president and general manager of Epix, as CEO for the new venture.
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“We are pleased that SkyShowtime has received all regulatory approvals and are excited to bring this new, unique and compelling entertainment service—with a broad range of some of the world’s leading content—to millions of consumers across these markets,” said Sarhan in a statement.
“With the launch of SkyShowtime we are well positioned to utilize our global content engine to create a compelling streaming offering, quickly and at scale, with a smart strategic phased investment,” said Raffaele Annecchino, president and CEO of ViacomCBS Networks International, in a statement. “As a complement to our recently announced Paramount+ partnership with Sky in the UK, Italy, and Germany, SkyShowtime represents a huge opportunity to accelerate our market expansion and build a leadership position in SVOD in Europe.”
SkyShowtime will target approximately 90 million broadband homes when it arrives later this year. In December, ViacomCBS Bob Bakish told the audience at an investor conference his company previously had no plan to launch in those markets for at least two years, so the joint venture has moved up the timeline significantly.