NY Times reports Jared Kushner is involved in the Paramount bid. They also report that David Ellison sat in the presidential box last night at the Kennedy Center Honors. Of course Ellison's company will broadcast the show later this month:
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Paramount Skydance wants WBD
- Thread starter michael hagerty
- Start date
There is nothing sus about any of this... 🤔🙄
Media mergers are always very strange. The Disney/Fox one is still hard to wrap my head around, same with Marvel and Star Wars, since a lot of the Fox assets do not really line up with ABC or the other assets (even things like Touchstone or the R rated films they produced feel far away from 20th). Feels kinda like a "split" personality.
Is Netflix a majority foreign owned company? Why else would they need to sell off the subscription/cable assets, if the merger went ahead?
They don't own any cable, and they're not buying any. This deal is just for the studio and HBO.
Why? Because it's old technology.
Larry Ellison has made a personal guarantee of $40 Billion to buy WBD
www.latimes.com
Nice to have that kind of cash just laying around. Something tells me Netflix can match or beat it.
Larry Ellison pledges $40-billion personal guarantee for Paramount's Warner Bros. bid
Paramount again ups the ante in the acrimonious auction, saying Larry Ellison would personally back part of Paramount's bid for Warner Bros. Discovery.
www.latimes.com
Nice to have that kind of cash just laying around. Something tells me Netflix can match or beat it.
He must have raided the couch cushions.Larry Ellison has made a personal guarantee of $40 Billion to buy WBD
Larry Ellison pledges $40-billion personal guarantee for Paramount's Warner Bros. bid
Paramount again ups the ante in the acrimonious auction, saying Larry Ellison would personally back part of Paramount's bid for Warner Bros. Discovery.
Nice to have that kind of cash just laying around. Something tells me Netflix can match or beat it.
Maybe he sold another yacht!
Maybe he sublet a few of the houses in his Woodside (Calif.) compound.
Or perhaps he's selling off a few of the Koi in his pond.
This smacks loudly of a hostile takeover of the media by Trump via many indirect, difficult to trace connections.
Think about it: Ellison and son are both well known as Trump supporters, and WBD going to Paramount will benefit him more than a merger with Netflix would because it would potentially eliminate CNN, which Trump has been almost obsessively angry at for reasons only he can fathom (or maybe not? He seems so mindless sometimes, I wonder if there's anything there anymore....)
I'm not sure why they'd bother buying the whole thing, though, given that the newWB-Netflix combo would spin off the cable channels – including CNN – to their own company, which Paramount could buy easily if that's all they want.
I don't know. Maybe I'm not fully correct here, but one thing is certain: it feels all wrong, and while I don't necessarily enjoy all this consolidation that's been going on, I do hope Netflix prevails because it would be the lesser evil by a long shot.
c
Think about it: Ellison and son are both well known as Trump supporters, and WBD going to Paramount will benefit him more than a merger with Netflix would because it would potentially eliminate CNN, which Trump has been almost obsessively angry at for reasons only he can fathom (or maybe not? He seems so mindless sometimes, I wonder if there's anything there anymore....)
I'm not sure why they'd bother buying the whole thing, though, given that the newWB-Netflix combo would spin off the cable channels – including CNN – to their own company, which Paramount could buy easily if that's all they want.
I don't know. Maybe I'm not fully correct here, but one thing is certain: it feels all wrong, and while I don't necessarily enjoy all this consolidation that's been going on, I do hope Netflix prevails because it would be the lesser evil by a long shot.
c
You're doing fine so far.
Because the cable channels add nothing Paramount needs, apart from giving the Ellisons control of CNN. As I've mentioned before---even before the Paramount deal went through, Ellison has told people that was just the first step and that he needed to acquire another major studio and major streaming platform to achieve scale.
Left as it is, Paramount and Paramount+ are among the weakest in their fields. Ellison would rather spend money to buy existing scale than spend money on a roll of the dice to improve Paramount's box office and Paramount+'s subscriber base (CBS and the cable channels will be spun---we just don't know when yet, and maybe the Ellisons don't either).
He needs Warner Bros. and HBO Max. But there's no leverage for Trump's support there. So he needs to try to buy ALL of WBD, and promise to neuter CNN in the hopes that move, like Colbert's firing at CBS, will ease the way to approval.
CNN is already neutered. Nobody watches.
Ahhh, I see. That makes perfect sense.
I sure hope Netflix wins here. They're just trying to do business with no ulterior motives, whereas the Ellison's seem to want to use Paramount to ostensibly do the same, while simultaneously playing dirty politics to win Trump's favor. I don't like that.
Unfortunately, I have to agree. It was better 10 years ago.
In particular, I find their recent efforts to "both sides" much of their presentation kind of annoying, although their reporting is still fairly decent and their fact-checking is relatively robust. They also don't seem too prone to the sorts of Trump sanewashing that other networks have been found guilty of to various extents (for example, ABC's recap of his recent primetime address).
That said, even at its worst, I find CNN far better than networks like OAN (basically a MAGA mouthpiece), Newsmax (Fox News on steroids), and the terrible mess that VOA has been made into (a waste of time!)
c
Reports indicate that WBD will turn down the latest Paramount offer next week:
It makes sense. Zaslow doesn't see owning cable channels as a negative. So he unloads the expensive studio (that he doesn't know anything about), and he's back to running a TV company. Along the way, he wipes out most of his debt.
Netflix doesn't own a studio. But its streaming business could cause a problem with regulators. They seem to feel they have a plan to address that.
It makes sense. Zaslow doesn't see owning cable channels as a negative. So he unloads the expensive studio (that he doesn't know anything about), and he's back to running a TV company. Along the way, he wipes out most of his debt.
Netflix doesn't own a studio. But its streaming business could cause a problem with regulators. They seem to feel they have a plan to address that.
Paramount might pursue legal action against WBD. I don't know if there's actually a process they could follow to end up with them, but I'm sure the Ellisons will think of a way. I still see a way forward for Paramount ultimately winning potentially. Not actually sure the odds though.
Last edited:
History is your friend. Go Google (or in this case, DuckDuckGo) the terms "Peoplesoft Oracle merger acquisition" to see how Larry has bullied his way into acquiring a competitor in the past. (I was once a stockholder of both companies, so I have a bit of institutional memory to draw on if I can find where those brain cells are hiding now.)
Fair Use quotes:
1. "Oracle Corp. announced Monday that it has signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire PeopleSoft Inc. for approximately $10.3 billion." (NBC News, Oracle to acquire PeopleSoft for $10.3 billion )
2. "Twenty [one] years ago next week, Oracle closed the $10.3 billion deal to buy HR and finance software specialist PeopleSoft after a fraught, drawn-out, hostile takeover...
It marked the high point in a period of tech industry takeover mania, and the zenith of Oracle’s transition from a database company which also does applications to a business apps giant also present in the database market. Days after its completion, Oracle announced it was laying off around half of PeopleSoft’s workforce." (The Register, 20 years since Oracle bought two software rivals in one )
Yes, heard something about that. I am guessing the Ellisons are going to fight it out over WBD.
To update this story, I received a "tender offer" for my WBD stock. It was made by Paramount Skydance, which is keeping with their "hostile" takeover attempt. It was for an amount that was greater than my original purchase price, so I accepted the offer. I doubt very much that selling them my shares will make much of a difference in their endeavor. But the sale will go through on January 20th. At that time, I will no longer own shares in WBD.
What is their goal here. To pick up enough stock to force a sale?
Maybe so.
I got one of those tender offers too, but I refused it. I only have a handful, so their offer wouldn't have amounted to much anyway.
c