Cruising Altitude
Cruising Altitude
"This Is My ViacomCBS"⛰️⛰️⛰️
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"This Is My ViacomCBS"⛰️⛰️⛰️

What is up Cruisers?!

We hope everyone had a great week and we could not be more excited for this week’s issue! Tired of reading? Just click on the play button above and you can hear CEO Alan read this week’s newsletter to you!

Let us jump right in!


🔍SPOTLIGHT

ViacomCBS- The Streaming Company

🎦Setting The Stage

Anyone that loves sports knows that when reflecting on a big game, it is clear that there was one moment or one play where the momentum really changed. Sometimes you know it in the moment. Sometimes only after the game is over does it become clear.

This can happen in investing too with a game changing acquisition, a strategic partnership, or the hiring of a new executive.

Yesterday, ViacomCBS $VIAC, Cruising Altitude Portfolio Pick, announced their fourth quarter earnings (they were good) but the real story was their “Streaming Event.” This event marked the official beginning of a new era at ViacomCBS.

Right at the beginning of the event, there was a pivotal moment. A moment that we at CA think will be reflected on as the moment where the momentum of ViacomCBS truly shifted from a legacy media conglomerate (big word) to a streaming company that can, and WILL, compete with Netflix.

Sherri Redstone, ViacomCBS Executive Chairman and daughter of the recently passed Media Mogul Sumner Redstone, former Executive Chairman of ViacomCBS, opened the event with this statement:

“This is not your father’s Viacom. This is not my father’s Viacom either.”

Sherri Redstone stood up there as the only one on the stage with the whole financial world watching (well at least the media financial world), looked into the camera, and said, “This is my company now, I am going to create my own legacy, and I am so confident in this that I now own 80% of the company.”

Powerful. Now that we have set the stage, let us jump into “the show,” which in this case is Paramount+.

Winning Breaking News GIF by RNSM
Actual footage (we think but have not confirmed) of Sherri Redstone sharing with the world that it is “her time”

📺Paramount+

The flagship streaming platform for ViacomCBS will be Paramount+ and the service sounds remarkable. As we are sure you all know from Super Bowl ads, Paramount+ is the only streaming service that has “Live Sports, Breaking News, and a Mountain of Entertainment.” Let us share some more details:

  • Live Sports- P+ will be home to the NFL, SEC Football, NCAA March Madness, UEFA Champions League, PGA Tour Golf, and so much more

  • Breaking News- Live news including local CBS affiliate channels, National CBS News, and so much more

  • A Mountain of Entertainment- A really really tall mountain of entertainment that we will need to start a new paragraph for

⛰️Mountain of Entertainment

There will be a lot of really good stuff including:

  • 36 new original series including a new Star Trek, two Yellowstone spinoffs, iCarly reboot, Avatar the Last Airbender, a series based off the videogame Halo, and so much more

  • A new reality TV show every month including: Love Island USA, The Real World, The Challenge, and so much more

  • Movies- There are a couple movies that will be included on the launch of the service like SpongeBob on The Run, but the coolest movie related feature is that 30-45 days after the release of a Blockbuster Paramount Film movie, it will be available on the platform. Examples include TopGun Maverick and a Silent Place II.

For a full list of the content click here.

How we will be watching Paramount+ content- thoroughly enjoying with a lot of food!

🔢The Numbers

ViacomCBS expects to see explosive growth in streaming revenue and subscribers. When looking specifically at paid/premium services (Paramount+, BET+, Showtime OTT) $VIAC expects:

  • 65-75 million paid subscribers in 2024 compared to 30 million in 2020

  • $7 billion in streaming revenue in 2024 compared to $2.8 Billion in 2020

For PlutoTV, the Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST) service, which is a “rocket ship” in the words of CEO Bob Bakish, we can expect:

  • 100-120 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs) in 2024 compared to 43 million in 2020

  • There was not a specific 2024 revenue estimate given but Bakish shared that they expect it to be a $1 billion business and not stop there. That is pretty good for an asset that they paid $340 million for!

🎁Wrapping It Up

When it comes to ViacomCBS, Cruising Altitude can talk about it all day. There is so so so much that we left out and we will likely be doing a deep dive on $VIAC via podcast in the coming weeks!

If you couldn’t tell, we still believe in the ViacomCBS thesis. We actually believe in it even more than we did when we added the stock a few months back. Just think about this: $VIAC is trading at 1.3x sales (like a legacy media company). If the company starts trading like a streaming company like Netflix $NFLX (10x sales) watch out!

$VIAC To The Moon!


💸Performance

Portfolio Update

As you can see, the portfolio is now a little bit more colorful! Under the “Ticker” column we are instituting a color-coded system that allows Cruisers to see how excited the CA team is about certain stocks.

Here is the breakdown:

🟩Green= “Absolutely Ecstatic”

🟧Orange= “Just Ecstatic”

🟨Yellow= “Some Concerns”

🟥Red= “Big Concerns”

As always, for live updates click here!


🎙️PODCAST!

Brian Feroldi & CEO Alan!

This week, CEO Alan interviewed Financial Twitter superstar Brian Feroldi! Brian is a writer at the Motley Fool and has a following of over 90,000 individuals on Twitter. On the podcast, which is just 15 minutes, Brian shares his thoughts on the current market environment, lessons he would share with his 20 year old self, and much much more!

Click here for the full show!


📰STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

This Week

Portfolio News

  • 💰 Earnings Season. This time it was Fastly $FSLY who announced their earnings. Last week, the company reported nearly $291 million in revenue for 2020, a growth of 45% year-over-year. This resulted in a net loss of $95.9 million for the year, but remember this is a growing company. Executives were still proud of the results, especially given the effects of the pandemic and the high potential for growth. We at Cruising Altitude continue to be more bullish than ever. More coming soon.

  • 🏀 Finally Free, Finally Filled. As COVID-19 case numbers continue to drop, New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced that stadiums and arenas could open to fans at 10% capacity. This is great news for $MSGS who, on Tuesday, hosted a Knicks game with fans for the first time since the pandemic started last year.

  • 🎰 Place Your Bets. Topgolf, a subsidiary of our very own $ELY, announced a partnership with $MGM’s gambling network, BetMGM. The partnership is a natural fit that will see the two companies work together to create marketing and promotional materials to reach new audiences. Topgolf guests will also be exposed to an “immersive betting experience” according to BetMGM Chief Revenue Officer Matt Prevost.


💯Insightful Quote


Thanks for Cruising with us! Follow us on Twitter and subscribe to get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.
-The Cruising Altitude Team

Disclaimer: Cruising Altitude (CA) is not a professional financial service. All materials released from Cruising Altitude are for educational and entertainment purposes. CA is not a replacement for a professional's opinion

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