WILL GAINS IN STREAMING VIDEO OFFSET DECLINES IN OTHER HOME MEDIA?

Studio executives who have long been fretting over diminishing returns from DVD and Blu-ray Disc sales may be seeing a different form of home media reversing the trend. Speaking to the Deutsche Bank media conference in Palm Beach, FL on Monday, Viacom chief Philippe Dauman said that he anticipates the company’s Paramount division, which saw its revenue from home video decline some 37 percent during the last quarter, “becoming overall a growth business for us, because of new revenue streams. … We’re now reaching a point where electronic sellthrough has been offsetting the further diminishing [sales] from the DVD window.” Dauman also predicted that the studio will be helped by the burgeoning demand for movies overseas. He said that Viacom is keeping a close eye on what cable operators are going to do about making content available on various platforms. “What’s most important to us is that our content is available ubiquitously, on different platforms in a measured way. We’ll see how it unfolds,” he said.