Comcast and ViacomCBS launch streaming service SkyShowtime in Europe

Comcast and ViacomCBS are teaming up to launch a European streaming service, the companies said on Wednesday.

The service, dubbed “SkyShowtime”, is expected to be launched in 2022 and rolled out in more than 20 European countries, including Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands. It will include libraries from the Sky, NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS brands owned by Comcast, such as Showtime, Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures. The new service will include both new and previously released movies and TV series and will offer more than 10,000 hours of content.

Comcast’s NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS decided to team up across much of Europe because each company felt there wasn’t a big enough streaming appetite for several products in those countries, according to people close to the country. case. Prices will differ from market to market, although they are “competitive” with other products in all countries, said the people, who asked not to be named as details are still private.

Shares of ViacomCBS were up more than 4% at 9.45am ET. Comcast’s shares were largely flat.

The news comes just two weeks after ViacomCBS announced its partnership with Sky to launch Paramount + in Europe. Last month, multiple media reported that Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and ViacomCBS President Shari Redstone met to discuss ways to work together.

SkyShowtime is structured as a joint venture with equal ownership of the two companies. It will run on the NBCUniversal platform. Comcast chose to use the Sky brand over Peacock because it is better known in Europe, one of the people said.

NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS lag behind many streaming giants, with just 54 million Peacock subscribers and 42 million streaming subscribers respectively. This puts them behind streaming giants like Netflix, Disney and Amazon.

Disclosure: Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.