A Parrot Quick Insight
On February 20, 2020, at its first earnings report since its December merger, ViacomCBS announced that it plans to bulk up the existing CBS All Access catalog by adding episodes from Viacom brands such as Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, and BET. This scenario is an excellent use case for our affinity context metric.
In the chart below, we can see that content from the various Viacom properties has a significantly lower affinity to CBS All Access content than the average non-CBS show. The implication of this for bringing Viacom content to CBS All Access is that it will appeal less to current CBS All Access users but will appeal to people who are not currently fans. This means it could be an effective move for growing the platform’s audience base rather than appealing to current subscribers. Among the Viacom brands, Comedy Central content has the highest affinity with CBS All Access content. Bringing over shows from this platform is more likely to keep current subscribers happy. Adding content from BET or Nickelodeon would be a better move to attract new subscribers
We can also view affinity at a show level to determine which specific series would most appeal to current CBS All Access fans. Below are the Viacom shows with the highest affinity to CBS All Access content. The top 3 Viacom shows by affinity come from three different Viacom properties – The Wild Thornberrys (Nickelodeon), Ex on the Beach (MTV), and The Other Two (Comedy Central) all have well above average affinity to CBS All Access when compared to the rest of the Viacom catalog. These could be good shows to prioritize bringing to CBS All Access to appeal to existing viewers.
