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Media Companies Are Ready to Sell. Does Anyone Want to Buy?

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michael hagerty said:
Until and unless the streamers develop deep stables of proven hit shows and schedule them to begin as others end, even a deep discount is going to result in people paying for a service they're not using for weeks or months at a time.
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Maybe, just maybe, this is the new normal?
michael hagerty said:
Consolidation will fix part of the issue---popular shows spread over too many platforms. When there are only three or four places to sell a mass-appeal show, those platforms will be able to build those stables and schedules.
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This simplistic notion that consolidation will be this magical wand that changes a cultural shift to a la carte entertainment, while removing choice and content providers and raising prices, is so grotesquely laughable. The odds are high that even if this current regulatory environment would allow such a merger, it wouldn't work anyway.
 
Has anyone (or a company) expressed interest in buying an OTA TV network (basically one [or more?]) of the Big 4?

What would a potential OTA TV network buyer look at - the valuable brands of the Big 4, the local affiliate news departments helped by being associated with one (or more) of the Big 4 brands or...


Kirk Bayne
 
Interesting discussion. Forgive me for injecting a bit of math into it.

That 6.3% number is a monthly churn for only November 2023. It's up from 5.1% a year ago, in November 2022. There's no information in the article about what's happened in the intervening months, but over a 12 month period -- for simplicity, let's ignore the fact that Nov-Nov is actually 13 months -- that's a 1.2% increase in the monthly rate for the year, about 0.1% per month.

Assuming the change was linear (which we don't know from the article), and we take the mid-point of May '23, that would be 5.7%. 68.4% for the entire year. A 68% churn is not sustainable for any subscription business over the long term. (Cable churn used to be in the 1-2% range when I worked in that industry, and given that their core service is now high-speed internet, probably still is.)

Amazon bundles video into their Prime delivery service, so subs aren't generally dropping Prime because Prime Video has gone up too much, it's a more complex calculation for them. And as has been stated earlier, Netflix and Hulu have higher loyalty and lower-than-average churn rates than average (IIRC). So the churn for the secondary streamers like Peacock, Paramount+, etc. has to be higher than average, which makes the prospects for their long term survival even more dicey.
 
kfbkfb said:
Has anyone (or a company) expressed interest in buying an OTA TV network (basically one [or more?]) of the Big 4?

What would a potential OTA TV network buyer look at - the valuable brands of the Big 4, the local affiliate news departments helped by being associated with one (or more) of the Big 4 brands or...


Kirk Bayne
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Former Nexstar official Tom Carter boasted that the company could buy ABC and the owned stations with "minimal friction", which only showed how oblivious he is to the current regulatory climate.

Byron Allen has talked about wanting to buy this and that, and also offered to buy ABC, but he talks a good game. Little else.
 
Kelly A said:
Which, by the way; only two more episodes left of Season 2 of Reacher. Love that show. Thought season 1 was a little better, but have found 2 entertaining.
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Surprised Paramount does not have that one on Paramount Plus. They produced the Jack Reacher films with Tom Cruise and have them both on the platform so surprised that one was sent out.
 
Nathan Obral said:
So why is this even being presented as a problem elsewhere on the thread by posters that are not me?
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Because you're not the only one posting before you look stuff up and understand it?

Nathan Obral said:
And why would any buyer for the company want the liabilities like the cable networks?

It's not my fault hindsight is 20/20.
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"Mr. Zaslav? There's a man in a raccoon costume in the lobby. Says you're running the business wrong."
 
Nathan Obral said:
Maybe, just maybe, this is the new normal?
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Maybe, just maybe the guys playing the game actually understand that when there are only four major streamers, that's four fewer platforms dividing up available audience for hit shows.

Nathan Obral said:
This simplistic notion that consolidation will be this magical wand that changes a cultural shift to a la carte entertainment, while removing choice and content providers and raising prices, is so grotesquely laughable. The odds are high that even if this current regulatory environment would allow such a merger, it wouldn't work anyway.
Click to expand...

Mergers are just one part of consolidation. Competitors that go under (with their pieces sold for scrap) play into it, too, as do companies that stay independent but cut their losses by doing distribution deals for their product with stronger competitors. Either way, there is room in the market for three----and maybe four---major streaming platforms.
 
Nathan Obral said:
Maybe, just maybe, this is the new normal?

This simplistic notion that consolidation will be this magical wand that changes a cultural shift to a la carte entertainment, while removing choice and content providers and raising prices, is so grotesquely laughable. The odds are high that even if this current regulatory environment would allow such a merger, it wouldn't work anyway.
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Redstone's original plan was after the Viacom-CBS re-merger to then look for someone else to merge with.
 
michael hagerty said:
Maybe, just maybe the guys playing the game actually understand that when there are only four major streamers, that's four fewer platforms dividing up available audience for hit shows.
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Or maybe it was a mistake to enter a game they could never win.
michael hagerty said:
Mergers are just one part of consolidation. Competitors that go under (with their pieces sold for scrap) play into it, too, as do companies that stay independent but cut their losses by doing distribution deals for their product with stronger competitors. Either way, there is room in the market for three----and maybe four---major streaming platforms.
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So let them go under if they can't survive.
 
michael hagerty said:
Because you're not the only one posting before you look stuff up and understand it?
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Because you're making arguments that are logical fallacies and refuse to consider the possibility that things are not what you think they are. All you're doing is blindly advocating for mass consolidation and not thinking about the consequences of such behavior.
michael hagerty said:
"Mr. Zaslav? There's a man in a raccoon costume in the lobby. Says you're running the business wrong."
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Really professional of you to devolve into name-calling and insults.
 
Weiserguy said:
Interesting discussion. Forgive me for injecting a bit of math into it.

That 6.3% number is a monthly churn for only November 2023. It's up from 5.1% a year ago, in November 2022. There's no information in the article about what's happened in the intervening months, but over a 12 month period -- for simplicity, let's ignore the fact that Nov-Nov is actually 13 months -- that's a 1.2% increase in the monthly rate for the year, about 0.1% per month.

Assuming the change was linear (which we don't know from the article), and we take the mid-point of May '23, that would be 5.7%. 68.4% for the entire year. A 68% churn is not sustainable for any subscription business over the long term.
Click to expand...

Here's what's missing from that: Subscriber counts are still increasing. If four million people leave a platform with 77 million subscribers, but five million new people subscribe, that's a net gain of one million.

Churn only hurts you when it outpaces new subscribers, and it's not.


Weiserguy said:
(Cable churn used to be in the 1-2% range when I worked in that industry, and given that their core service is now high-speed internet, probably still is.)
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Cable is more of a captive business (there aren't seven other cable companies in town offering different channels), and one where, when someone decides to leave, they are far less likely to come back. As we've illustrated, there's a cycle going on of subscribers making choices to leave and come back to streamers based on their finances, not on dissatisfaction with a given platform long term. There's not a lot of "I'm never coming back!" going on here.

Weiserguy said:
Amazon bundles video into their Prime delivery service, so subs aren't generally dropping Prime because Prime Video has gone up too much, it's a more complex calculation for them.
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Amazon Prime rate increases only happen every four years (so far). And, given that video isn't broken out as a line item, it's easy for people to say "hey, the cost of jet fuel, trucks, drivers...."

Weiserguy said:
And as has been stated earlier, Netflix and Hulu have higher loyalty and lower-than-average churn rates than average (IIRC). So the churn for the secondary streamers like Peacock, Paramount+, etc. has to be higher than average, which makes the prospects for their long term survival even more dicey.
Click to expand...

Even with those guys, churn is more than offset by growth. What's killing them is that they're the number 7 and 8 platforms in a world that can only accomodate four.
 
michael hagerty said:
"Mr. Zaslav? There's a man in a raccoon costume in the lobby. Says you're running the business wrong."
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Uh, er, I hate to tell you that what you saw is not a costume... and if it sees people with read hair, he eats them (not in the Jeffrey Epstein way, though).
 
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