Viacom Boss Philippe Dauman Preaches Cost Containment Gospel For Vital

“You’ll never see us risk $300M on a single movie, or $200M — $100M may be the limit,” Viacom Boss Philippe Dauman mentioned today inside an appearance within the Deutsche Bank Media & Telecom Conference.That is relevant to Vital’s new animation unit, which will to create SpongeBob SquarePants movie in the finish of 2014. The studio only has about 40 people simultaneously, and may delegate the handiwork. The movies wil be “under a $100M cost point, many of them way under.” With developments in cartoon, a substandard film can “still look good on-screen.” On other matters, Dauman did not have new explanations for your dramatic decline in Nickelodeon’s ratings — they has mentioned may reflect glitches in Nielsen’s measurement rather than kids’ indifference for the programming. “We don’t appreciate it, but we’ll deal iwth it and will also improve,” according to him. Meanwhile the cable systems business looks strong: In advertising “the tone is improving” with auto, food, and beverage companies trading greater than they'd. Furthermore, traders can “count on” Viacom’s capacity to barter no less than high single digit percentage rise in the expense channels collect from pay TV companies. But Dauman didn’t have the symptoms of exactly the same emergency in regards to the industry’s new TV Everywhere streaming initiatives that Boss Rob Bewkes displayed inside an earlier presentation today. Dauman states it may need as extended as three years to unveil as companies learn to manage technical and marketing demands.