Showtime plans to offer a standalone service (OTT) in the "not too distant future," said CBS Corp. chief Leslie Moonves, according to Variety.

Moonves spoke at the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet and Telecom investor conference in Palm Beach, Florida Wednesday morning and said that negotiations with digital distributors and traditional multi-channel video program distributors (MVPDs) are already taking place.

HBO formally announced HBO Now on Tuesday. The service will come out next month. That announcement caused Showtime to accelerate the negotiations.

"We've been having discussions with the normal suspects," Moonves said. "I think the floodgates are now open."

Both HBO and Showtime have hesitated in offering their programming separately from cable providers because they have feared that their relationships could be shattered. Now that Netflix has had so much success, Showtime and HBO have both changed their game plans.

Moonves said there has been some hesitation from some MVPDs. They have expressed concern about a digital-only offering taking away from their already existing service.

Standalone offerings like HBO Now are joining the choices of pay TV offerings and Moonves says this will help the economics for networks.

"Other than a little bit of consternation (from MVPDs), I don't see how anybody cannot view this as a positive for HBO and a positive for Showtime," Moonves said.

Moonves gave praise to HBO for waiting until the Apple Watch event to announce their exclusive three-month partnership with Apple TV.

"What a great platform to introduce your OTT service," Moonves said.

Moonves confirms that OTT is a hot topic in the TV industry right now. He stressed that CBS is positioning itself for the future with the CBS subscription video on demand service that launched last October.

"Clearly the bundle is changing. The days of the 500-channel universe are over," he said "The days of the 150-channel universe in the home are not necessarily over but they're changing rapidly. People are slicing it and dicing it in different ways."

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