NEW YORK—ViacomCBS revealed that it experienced revenue loss in the fourth quarter of 2019, but also looked positively into its future with the planned launch of a new streaming service, called “House of Brands.”

Building off what it has established with CBS All Access, ViacomCBS has revealed it will be offering House of Brands, a broad pay streaming product that adds to the company’s scaled assets in film and TV. House of Brands will include partnerships with traditional and new distributors, and be available domestically and internationally. ViacomCBS sees House of Brands as a complementary piece to its free Pluto TV and premium pay Showtime OTT services.

No specific launch date was given for House of Brands.

ViacomCBS has seen strong results from its streaming options thus far. In the report it says that the premiere of “Star Trek: Picard” in January broke CBS All Access’ internal records for total streams and subscriber signups. Also, for the entirety of 2019, domestic streaming and digital video business for the company generated $1.6 billion in revenue.

Despite the boom in streaming options, Q4 2019 was a down period for ViacomCBS. Pay-TV saw significant declines, though retransmission and subscription streaming revenue was able to offset affiliate revenue so that it saw a 1% growth overall. However, domestic advertising revenue took a hit, affected by declines in political advertising compared to Q4 in 2018. Content licensing also saw a revenue decline of 11% as a result of timing and mix of deliveries, says ViacomCBS.

Overall, the $6.87 billion in revenue that ViacomCBS reported in Q4 2019 was down about 3% from Q4 2018.

The full revenue picture from 2019, however, saw a 2% growth overall, with the company reporting it earned a total revenue of $27.8 billion through all of its offerings.

“In less than three months since completing our merger, we have made significant progress integrating and transforming ViacomCBS,” said Bob Bakish, president and CEO of ViacomCBS. “We see incredible opportunity to realize the full power of our position as one of the largest content producers and providers in the world.

“In 2020, our priorities are maximizing the power of our content, unlocking more value from our biggest revenue lines and accelerating our momentum in streaming.”

The full ViacomCBS Q4 2019 financial report is available online. 

FOSTER CITY, Calif.—Baby Yoda and other new streaming content increased the amount of time that viewers spent streaming in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to the latest report from global streaming media intelligence company Conviva.

In Conviva’s “State of Streaming” report for Q4 2019, consumers’ time spent streaming increased 58% from the same period last year, strongly motivated by the launch of new services like Disney+ and Apple TV+. The report also found that on-demand streaming is more popular than live streaming, with on-demand making up 66% of global streaming.

Another part of Conviva’s report looked at advertising in streaming, which is still experiencing issues. Conviva found that start time for ads nearly doubled from Q3 2019 to Q4, from 1.14 to 2.27 seconds, which makes it more likely that viewers will exit an ad (49% exit before an ad starts). Ad buffering also remains an issue, seeing a 48% increase quarter over quarter. Small gains were seen, however, with the number of streaming ad attempts that failed to play (down to 36.5% from 39.6%) and ad start failures (35.7% to 30.8%). The average time of ads also shrunk from 38 seconds in Q3 to 26.6 seconds in Q4.

“From recent entrants like Disney+ to soon-to-be-launched services like NBC’s Peacock and HBO Max, we’ve barely begun to scratch the surface of streaming’s impact not only on consumer behavior, but also on the multi-billion dollar advertising and entertainment industries,” said Bill Demas, CEO at Conviva. “As with any disruptive technology, growing pains are inevitable. The companies that win the streaming wars will be those able to offer viewers a fast, clear, reliable experience regardless of where in the world they live, or what device they use.”

In addition, Conviva also revealed in its report of improved performance of the leading streaming player Roku, seeing reductions in video start failures, video start times, buffering and improved bitrate and picture quality.

Other findings in the report included the rise of streaming internationally, Android’s dominance in the mobile streaming sector and news and sports use of social platforms for streaming content.

For more information, read the full report from Conviva.