Streaming profits still weak

 Most of the advertising revenue from major sporting events will continue to come from broadcast and cable, not streaming, CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said Tuesday.

Even as more and more fans watch sporting competitions streamed over their smartphones, tablets and computers, CBS still expects traditionally broadcast Sunday afternoon American football games to be its most lucrative time slot, said McManus.

That won't change with streaming any time soon, he told the Leaders group's Sports Business Summit in New York.

"The fact of the matter is the NFL gets the lion's share of its revenue from broadcast television and from basic cable television," McManus said.

"I don't think you're going to see a lot of games broadcast exclusively streaming on sites like Yahoo, Netflix or Google," he said.

"The lion's share of the audience and the lion's share of the revenue is always going to be at least for the foreseeable future on broadcast television."

McManus' comments came on the heels of CBS' broadcast of the National Football League's 50th Super Bowl last month, which drew 11.9 million viewers.

McManus said a streaming broadcast on Yahoo of a NFL game in October "was a good experiment," but that advertising sales were only "okay."

McManus, however, said that CBS is also continuing to invest in its own streaming venture, the "All Access" subscription-based service. But the NFL has so far resisted permitting CBS to stream its games.

"I'm confident we'll figure out a way to include it" in All Access eventually, he said.

CBS has also signed on to the NFL's plans for Thursday night games, agreeing to a provision for games to be shown on a non-CBS streaming service.

However, CBS was able to negotiate a deal where it would still keep advertising revenues from the streaming service.

"The good news for us is that the national commercials that we sell will run in the stream on the digital platform, which means it's only added revenue for us," he said.
Source: AFP