About Naveen Chopra
Naveen Chopra, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Paramount Global, has discussed the company's streaming strategy and financial performance in recent appearances. In a November 2022 interview, Chopra stated that Paramount's approach involves "using a traditional media company to build a large-scale leading streaming business." He reported that the company added 6.3 million new direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscribers in the first quarter of 2022, following 9.4 million additions in the fourth quarter of 2021, and described D2C revenue growth of 82% in Q1 2022. Chopra said the company had revised its long-term streaming subscriber target from 65-75 million by the end of 2024 to 100 million, citing faster-than-expected growth. He also highlighted content strategy, noting that shows like "Yellowstone" are used to build franchise IP for the streaming service.
In separate appearances, Chopra has offered advice on real estate investing and professional development. In a November 2023 podcast, he discussed preconstruction real estate in Canada, stating that "builders are listening now and offering incentives to hit sales targets and financing thresholds" and that "this is the first time in 15 years you can realistically negotiate incentives on preconstruction deals." He distinguished between investors and speculators, saying "an investor expects and a speculator hopes," and advised against speculative investing without a plan. In a December 2024 podcast, Chopra recommended that new real estate agents "attend open houses, shadow people, shadow a senior sales agent" and noted that "the best agents I know are the ones that are constantly educating themselves and learning new technology."
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Naveen Chopra's recent appearances.
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Transcript (15 segments)
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Doma T Pongo0:00
I'm Doma T Pongo, and this is Streaming. Today I'm talking to Paramount CFO Naveen Chopra.
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Naveen Chopra0:11
Tell us about Paramount's streaming strategy and why is it so unique as compared to everything else in the marketplace.
I think the fundamental way to think about our strategy is using a traditional media company to build a large-scale, leading streaming business. We're really the only streaming service out there where you can come and get very high quality sports content, very high quality scripted content, very high quality kids content, reality content, news events, and big theatrical movies.
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Doma T Pongo0:44
How would you characterize our growth in the D2C business?
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Naveen Chopra0:49
The short answer is we're doing extremely well. I think we've blown away most people's expectations. We just reported Q1 earnings and we added 6.3 million new D2C subscribers, which really puts us in the top tier of subscriber growth for the first quarter of 2022. That's on top of the 9.4 million subscribers we added in Q4 in the D2C segment. From a revenue perspective, we've grown D2C revenue 82% in Q1, which came after 83% growth in Q4. So we're on a very good trajectory in terms of revenue growth and subscriber growth in D2C.
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Doma T Pongo1:30
And I hear you're right. Are we now the fastest growing streamer in terms of you know, if you look at the top five or six streamers?
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Naveen Chopra1:38
We're certainly one of the fastest growing.
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Doma T Pongo1:41
What are some other strategies for growing subscriptions and reducing churn?
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Naveen Chopra1:44
Well, I think number one, it starts with your content. That's where this concept of a very broad, diverse content offering is so important, because for every dollar that we spend on content, we can extract more in return than anyone else because we have this unique portfolio of businesses or distribution channels.
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Doma T Pongo2:07
Let's talk a bit about how Paramount is fueling that linear to streaming pipeline.
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Naveen Chopra2:11
You take a show like Yellowstone, one of the biggest shows in television today. We've said, okay, how do we use the fact that we've got this piece of content on linear that is turning into very powerful franchise IP that people have absolutely fallen in love with? And what Chris McCarthy and his team did was say, okay, why don't we build a whole world around that? So we just announced earlier this week that the next installment in that universe is going to be 1932. That's all made possible by this linear show that was created many years ago and now has an even bigger vision around it.
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Doma T Pongo2:50
What content are you and the family watching? What are you excited for?
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Naveen Chopra2:55
I was part of the original Halo generation back before there was even Wi-Fi. My friends and I used to cable Xboxes together. So I was super excited to see Halo come to life as a live action series on Paramount Plus, and I think they really gave justice to what is an incredible gaming franchise. In terms of things that are coming, I'm going to watch Top Gun very soon. I could not be more excited about that. Everything I've heard is just phenomenal.
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Doma T Pongo3:24
What is the outlook for the future and what are some of those goals?
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Naveen Chopra3:26
Rewind the clock to February of last year. We put together a set of long-term streaming goals that we shared with our investors, and that included achieving between 65 to 75 million streaming subscribers by the end of 2024. Fast forward one year to February of 2022. We have been growing much faster than we thought and anyone else thought for that matter. So we now said that 65 to 75 million that we thought we were going to achieve in 2024, we think we're going to exceed that number this year in 2022. So by 2024, the number's not 75, it's 100. So that's very exciting progress for us.
