Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman on Paramount Global bid: “We wanted IP”

Sony and bid partner Apollo Global Management withdrew from the chase for Paramount Global in August when it looked increasingly likely that the Skydance Media merger proposal would eventually win out.

Vinciquerra said had its bid succeeded, Sony would have sold the Paramount lot for use as a production facility, sold CBS and cable networks, and found a partner to merge with Paramount+.

The executive stressed more than a couple of times that streaming will eventually become a profitable business once the industry goes through adjustments. He said the company was opportunistic and was looking for IP, location-based businesses, and genre-based streaming services it can drop on its profitable Crunchyroll anime platform.

When Vinciquerra arrived at Sony in 2017 after decades in television running Fox Networks Group and CBS’s television group, the company owned 110 cable networks. Now most have been sold or shut down. “Cable networks are still a viable business in parts of Latin America, Spain and India and we’re still in business there with roughly 30 networks,” he said.

Upon his arrival the executive said the heat was on to move the studio the way of all its Hollywood counterparts. “We were under a lot of pressure at that point to start a general entertainment streaming service.” However Sony remains the only US major not to have its own broad entertainment platform.

“We didn’t get into that,” Vinciquerra said, “because all our competitors were [in that business] and it was obvious they would all need content and we could supply all the content they needed.” He added the company was a “strategic supplier”, and, noting that demand for content has increased, cited Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Apple as primary customers.

However Sony Pictures Entertainment acquired the Crunchyroll anime platform in 2021, which he said is profitable.

Vinciquerra also addressed Sony Pictures Entertainment’s acquisition earlier this year of the boutique Alamo Drafthouse chain. “It’s not going to be a massive business,” he said of the circuit, which operates 41 sites in the United States, mostly outside the major theatrical markets of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco. “But it’s going to grow a little bit.”

The executive outlined reasons behind the acquisition. “They have 4.5million people in their loyalty programme,” he noted. “Producing television and film, we don’t have direct contact with our customers. We now have access to understand what people are looking for.”

Another point is synergy. “The customer profile of Alamo matches up with Crunchyroll, so we can use that to promote Crunchyroll, and really also find out what’s going on in the theatrical business.”