“We are sending a message that our content doesn’t have to cost a fortune to watch,” said the CEO of fledgling streamer SkyShowtime, who backed David Zaslav’s recent suggestion that rival streamers should bundle together.
Monty Sarhan took the reins of the Comcast/Paramount Global JV last year and has since overseen the hiring of 180 staff across seven offices, a rollout to more than 20 European territories in which Comcast’s Peacock and Now TV, and Paramount+ aren’t present, and the commissioning of a number of original series.
Speaking to Deadline before a NEM keynote in Dubrovnik, he said SkyShowtime’s pricing structure had been forged in response to “double digit inflation, a cost-of-living crisis and with war raging in Ukraine.”
Monty Sarhan: “One of the important ways we can create value is by bundling”
“We are leaning into a consumer value proposition that puts consumers at the forefront, and we launched at a lower price point than our competitors for that reason,” said Sarhan. “We are sending a message that our content doesn’t have to cost a fortune to watch.”
SkyShowtime is now available in the likes of the Nordics, Portugal, Spain and Poland at between €3.99 ($4.30) and €6.99 ($7.50) per month depending on territory. The streamer is “ahead of our subs projections across all markets,” according to the CEO.
He backed Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) boss Zaslav’s recent suggestion that rival services will need to bundle together to survive, using SkyShowtime – which combines the might of two legacy Hollywood studios’ back catalogs – as an exemplar.
“One of the important ways we can create value is by bundling,” added Sarhan, a former Comcast SVP of Content Acquisition.
“Our two shareholders have done exactly that. Streaming as an industry is only about 15 years old and a lot of the business models that have existed as part of the TV industry for decades remain important.”
Sarhan was speaking to Deadline several weeks after unveiling a hefty originals slate at Cannes including Finnish-Swedish crime series Codename: Annika, Spain’s Las Invisibles and Poland’s Warszawianka.
While Sarhan is completely open to where originals are commissioned from, half have so far been greenlit in Spain, and he said it has been “easier to ramp up programing [in Spain] compared to other markets as Spanish studios tend to produce more content.”
The slate “shows a commitment to ‘local’ that other streamers are not making,” added Sarhan, who said competitors are “pulling back in terms of what they’re producing and investing in these markets.”
Many SkyShowtime originals came via a deal with HBO Max, which pulled commissioning from the majority of European territories last year and removed originals from its platform. SkyShowtime picked up 21 of these shows once their HBO licensing window had passed including Norway’s Beforeigners, Sweden’s Lust and Denmark’s Kamikaze.
Sarhan said he would be happy to explore more of these deals but that the biggest value proposition for SkyShowtime remains the Comcast/Paramount library along with acquisitions. While not disclosing viewing figures, he cited the likes of Yellowstone and Tulsa King as big performers on the platform.
“Because of our shareholders we have a great content pipeline and this positions us well against the competition,” he added.
SkyShowtime has also acquired the likes of Rian Johnson’s Poker Face and upcoming Emma Stone comedy The Curse, which are being badged as SkyShowtime Originals.
A strong pipeline of European programing puts SkyShowtime in a “good position to weather the storm” wrought by the U.S. writers strike, Sarhan added.
He rejected the notion that the strike will impact SkyShowtime negatively in a significant way and instead backed WBD CEE head Jamie Cooke’s claim that the disruption has “created opportunities” for writers and producers in Europe.
Sarhan’s long-term desire is for SkyShowtime to be one of the top three streamers in each of its 22 markets and he reflected on a whirlwind few months in which the streamer rolled out in one territory per week.
“One market per week helps convey the magnitude of how fast we were launching,” he added. “I got here and had to build a team literally from zero and we have grown at a remarkably fast rate.”
NEM finishes later today and has featured keynotes from Movistar, WBD, Sony and All3Media International execs, along with The X Files EP Frank Spotnitz, who said the “erosion of the power of writers in the U.S.” can serve as a “learning opportunity” for European storytellers.
