Paramount’s U.S. Ad Sales Chief Welcomes Netflix to the AVOD ‘Party’ — with a Warning

Paramount Global’s head of U.S. ad sales Jo Ann Ross is in a good place, and we don’t just mean New York City’s Carnegie Hall, the site of her annual upfront. With the ad-supported Paramount+ tier and frontrunner in the FAST (free, ad-supported streaming television) Pluto TV under her purview, Ross has a pair of reasons to pop champagne at the party immediately following Wednesday’s slate presentation to advertisers. And those are just her streaming reasons.

“We were the first mover, and I think we have an advantage as the leader in that space,” Ross said of the company’s 2019 Pluto acquisition and the maturation of CBS All Access into Paramount+. We think so, too.

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While Pluto’s standing as the leader in FAST is not really debatable, the same designation for Paramount+ in AVOD is about to get complicated as the space gets even more crowded. On Tuesday, the Disney upfront event only lightly updated media buyers and reporters on the months-ago announcement that Disney+ will add an ad-supported tier later this year. But that’s happening. Netflix is also expected to offer an option with commercials by the end of 2022.

Ross, who years ago (publicly) foresaw Netflix’s pending pivot to AVOD, said the mounting AVOD announcements are “only more validation to us.”

“OK, come to the party,” she said. “We’re ahead of the curve. It’s a great ecosystem to be in and we’ve stuck our flag in the ground early on, and we continue to put our money where our mouth is.”