European Streamer SkyShowtime’s Monty Sarhan On Adding “Local Sprinkles” To Hollywood Hits And “The Year Of ‘Yellowstone’” – NEM Dubrovnik
SkyShowtime CEO Monty Sarhan talked about bringing Yellowstone to its European subscribers and plans to bolster the streaming service’s U.S. franchises with up to ten local originals in 2024, in a keynote at NEM Duvbrovnik.
A joint-venture between Paramount and Comcast, SkyShowtime is in over 20 European territories, localized into 19 languages, and launched in countries where its parent companies did not already have a streaming presence.
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It has TV and movie content from its owners, including all theatrical releases from Paramount and Universal, and big-ticket series including Yellowstone. Asked about that show, Sarhan said the series is a cornerstone of its service: “It’s ‘the year of Yellowstone‘, that’s what we’re calling it at SkyShowtime. That’s really the biggest show in the world right now.”
The lively NEM session was hosted by the event’s founder Sanja Božić-Ljubičić who couldn’t hide her love for the Yellowstone franchise. She asked specifically about prequel series 1923 and Sarhan said: “They are filming a new season right now, Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren are hard at work.”
SkyShowtime also underlined a commitment to local drama and docs – an important message for producers given HBO, Sky Deutschland, Paramount+ and others have pulled back. Sarhan, who relocated from the U.S. to Europe to run SkyShowtime, doubled down on a commitment to local originals.
“We have original series for every one of our regions, we had a Polish production, we had a Czech original, we had a Swedish show, we had four originals in Spain,” he said. “And we’re on track to probably do about eight to 10 shows this year.”
The streamer recently announced Schmeichel, a doc series on legendary Danish goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, and Spanish series Las Pelotaris 1926 and Mamen Mayo. “Local storytelling is incredibly important, we describe ourselves as the best of Hollywood with local sprinkles,” Sarhan said.
SkyShowtime has also launched an ad-supported tier. Its boss told the Dubrovnik crowd that people are “looking for more affordable options when it comes to streaming.”
He added that the streamer was keen to launch its ad-supported service across its footprint despite low CPMs in some territories. “We launched with a headline price that was better than Netflix, better than HBO, better than Disney+. We’re probably one of the only streamers that talked about value, and for us, it was incredibly important that if we’re going to do this [ad-supported tier], we should do it for everyone.”
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