ViacomCBS CFO Naveen Chopra joined Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi to discuss ViacomCBS's pivot to streaming content and how the model for movie theater releases has changed.

Video Transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: Let's welcome in ViacomCBS CFO Naveen Chopra. Naveen, good to speak with you today.

NAVEEN CHOPRA: Hey, Brian, good to be here. Thanks for having us.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah. Yeah, of course, likewise-- big CES chat here. You just started at ViacomCBS in August. And ever since then, there has been a portfolio reshaping of ViacomCBS. CNET sold for $500 million. Simon & Schuster, that sold for $2.2 billion. Take us behind the scenes. Why are you reshaping the portfolio, and what lies ahead?

NAVEEN CHOPRA: Well, the-- that reshaping you described, Brian, is really about us getting focused on our core, and that core, for us, is about studios, networks, and streaming. So a lot of the transactions you've seen us do have been about divesting some of our-- the assets that don't fit into that core. And we're extremely excited about how those things have played out, I think. You know, those ended up probably exceeding a lot of people's expectations.

But the real story there is the focus on the big opportunity ahead, of course, which is streaming. And that is a huge priority for us, as a company, today. And we've had some great momentum in 2020 with a lot more to come in 2021.

BRIAN SOZZI: I definitely want to touch upon your streaming initiatives. But how much-- how many-- how much it costs or cost synergy have you wrung out so far from the CBS-Viacom merger, and what's left?

NAVEEN CHOPRA: Well, we've also exceeded expectations on that front. So when the Viacom-CBS merger was announced, the expectation was that it would release about $750 million worth of synergies in the long run. We've now increased that estimate to over $800 million, which we intend to have in place by the end of 2022. We've also exceeded expectations, in terms of how much of that we've been able to capture in 2020. So that has been going extremely well.

BRIAN SOZZI: Naveen, you're no stranger to the media space. You were the interim CEO for Pandora. You arrived to ViacomCBS, you were the CFO Amazon's devices, really some big jobs here. How do you see ViacomCBS fitting into the streaming-- I would say, streaming wars? You know, it's a term we all use, but really, it's what we're seeing. It's a-- Netflix is out there. Disney+ has seen strong numbers. How do you think Paramount+ will fit in?

NAVEEN CHOPRA: Yeah, it's a great question, Brian. Look, success in streaming ultimately comes down to great content and distribution. And that's where, I think, ViacomCBS is extremely well positioned. You know, we-- obviously, there are, as you said, it's-- there are many other players in streaming, but we don't think they've been able to come to market with quite the value proposition that we have across Paramount+, Showtime, and Pluto TV. And what I mean by that is, while there are great general entertainment services out there, we will have, in Paramount+, not just a mountain-- what we call a mountain of entertainment, but also live sports, news, events. Those are things that have not, frankly, been well served through traditional streaming services.