I get what you're saying. I'm just saying that they valued the film libraries of Universal and Warner. At the time the deals were made, those were perceived to be vaults of gold. And as we've discussed here, there's been a sea change in how studios manage streaming deals for their content.
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CNBC: WBD next to spin cable assets
- Thread starter michael hagerty
- Start date
I get what you're saying. I'm just saying that they valued the film libraries of Universal and Warner. At the time the deals were made, those were perceived to be vaults of gold. And as we've discussed here, there's been a sea change in how studios manage streaming deals for their content.
Well we seen Lionsgate spinoff Starz in the past week for the same reasons we are watching the Comcast/Versant split waiting for Approval and this proposed WB Spinoff cable channels related to WB protecting Max app.
deadline.com
Lionsgate Completes Split Of Studios And Starz
Lionsgate has completed the full separation of its studio and Starz businesses into two standalone, publicly-traded companies.
deadline.com
I think it's because TBS has a lot of big name syndicated shows to prop up new edgier shows for a younger audience, which is what they were trying to do. I think Turner knew AT&T wanted streaming shows, so that's what they tried to do starting in 2016, with Big Bang and sports giving the original shows and extra boost.
AOL is basically a sublabel within Yahoo as of 2025. I remember why AOL bought Time Warner as part of the Dot com boom in that era. This was when AOL and Yahoo were seen as the "big tech" of the late 1990's/early 2000's timeframe and they were advised to diversify their assets with traditional media to find stability.
I knew that AT&T buying Time Warner was going to be an epic fail and the government should've denied it. As AT&T is a monopoly like when they were force to sell the baby bells and then bought up all those baby bells once again. AT&T failed at cable how that worked out along with DirectTV they don't do good other than being a phone company that sells smartphones.
Sorta.
There were seven "Baby Bells".
Thirteen years after the breakup, SBC (Southwestern Bell) bought Pacific Telesis (Pacific Bell). And fifteen years after the breakup, that combined SBC bought Ameritech (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin Bells.
Twenty-one years after the breakup, SBC bought AT&T and rebranded as AT&T. And a year after that, it bought BellSouth.
And in those 13-22 years, technology, competition and regulation had all changed. AT&T was able to attain scale, but not to have the monopoly it had prior to 1984.
And tech and competition has changed since then, as well. AT&T is a major player (a top two choice in cellular), but with no overwhelming built-in advantage against competition.
Arguably, mission accomplished.
When I sell a rental house or some timberland there will be capital gains taxes. I will sell some WBD shares (original spinoff shareholder stockholdet) with the paper loses to off set the taxes. I have already paid inheritance taxes on the stock.
Most radio people think of the 1996 telecom act as being about radio deregulation. But the main part of it made it possible for the baby bells to reform as Verizon and AT&T. That was far more damaging to the idea of competition in communications than what happened in radio. Especially now when the internet has basically replaced radio in communications.
And broadband is still not as fast or widespread as it should be.
ok, since the topic got derailed about AT&T and the monopoly it used to happen all that stuff, i'm gonna go ahead and get this back to the topic.
if WBD does spin the cable operations off, they should call the new company "Turner Discovery Communications" while rebranding WBD back to Warner Brothers Company. and the Turner Discovery name would be a nod to Ted Turner's Turner empire that merged with what is now WBD.
if WBD does spin the cable operations off, they should call the new company "Turner Discovery Communications" while rebranding WBD back to Warner Brothers Company. and the Turner Discovery name would be a nod to Ted Turner's Turner empire that merged with what is now WBD.
Discovery isn’t going to remove its brand from WBD, and certainly not to attach the name to declining assets.
The Turner name equity is low and getting lower. They might use “TBS”, but they’re unlikely to go further than that.
I agree. Remember who's running this operation. Zaslow isn't going to put Ted Turner's name ahead of his own company.
There's a part of me that thinks we might see some BIG changes in this spin off. Such as perhaps spinning CNN off as its own thing.
It would be easy though. Could even move that group to Atlanta. If it's spun off, it's not Zaslavs property anymore.
A lot of it still is in Atlanta. In Turner's original building on Techwood Drive.
Hey, they could spin off cable and rename the mothership HBOWarner. This morning, news that Max is once again HBO Max:
That explains why so much has been removed from the platform lately. But, don't know where a lot of WB properties will end up, since even the original iteration of HBO Max tried to be extremely broad, and now it's siphoning down.
If there's demand they'll license them to other streamers. If not, they won't.
I think stuff like Friends and Big Bang are staying a while, though. Some non HBO or Max originals are popular like those.