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Paramount Skydance wants WBD

Don CT said:
He’s still a smaller vulnerable company.
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Right. CBS and its linear cable assets are no great shakes. Paramount is the weakest of the major movie studios. The only thing that keeps Paramount+ from being the weakest streamer is that Peacock exists.

Now, that's a deal I could see Amazon going for---swallow Paramount, merge the streaming into Prime and sell CBS and the linear stuff to private equity.

Or---after Ellison spins CBS and linear, Comcast swallows the Paramount studio and streaming.
 
TheBigA said:
However, Ellison had been claiming in the WBD offer that he was retaining CBS linear and also wanted WBD linear.
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That's right---Ellison's bid was for ALL of WB Discovery. Which would give him CNN.

Not saying I'm not a dope and that I don't need more coffee, but that's probably what got stuck in the frontal lobes.
 
Don CT said:
Why would you want all of it though. Sure grab the flagships but do you need 30 dead weight channels.
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He'd have spun them, eventually. Maybe he has ideas as to how to make them more attractive to buyers than they are now, or perhaps the Warner Discovery linears plus the CBS linears combined add up to a more profitable package when he sells them. Maybe it enables him to do two or more deals for cash, stock or asset trades that would be advantageous to him instead of one.
 
michael hagerty said:
He'd have spun them, eventually. Maybe he has ideas as to how to make them more attractive to buyers than they are now, or perhaps the Warner Discovery linears plus the CBS linears combined add up to a more profitable package when he sells them. Maybe it enables him to do two or more deals for cash, stock or asset trades that would be advantageous to him instead of one.
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Right now the only thing saving the whole bundle is sports. They both have a deep portfolio. And they already share the March madness bundle.
 
If this acquisition goes through I wonder if it’s the end of the road for Turner Classic Movies as Netflix will own the entire film library and as TCM has no commercials it might not be realistic for TCM to pay to license the movies
 
Larry said:
If this acquisition goes through I wonder if it’s the end of the road for Turner Classic Movies as Netflix will own the entire film library and as TCM has no commercials it might not be realistic for TCM to pay to license the movies
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HBO Max has really bulked up the library in the TCM subchannel on the app. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
 
there's the wrestling media aspect of this merger as wrestling news sites have also been following this and covering it today too.

What this mean to the media rights to the 2 top promotions, i'll explain.

1. Netflix will continue being the US home of WWE Raw and international home for WWE TV and PLE events as the US rights to SmackDown remains at USA Network/Versant, the NXT rights remain at the CW, the US PLE rights now goes to ESPN for the "Main Roster" (Raw & SmackDown talents) PLEs and NXT PLEs and Saturday Night's Main Event still belongs to Peacock/NBCUniversal, WWE archive rights on Peacock maybe moving to new streaming services in 2026 (YouTube, Netflix, ESPN or a new 24/7 FAST Channel devoted to WWE could be where they wind up) as those rights end at the end of this year.

2. WBD is still being split up with Netflix acquiring the planned "Warner Bros" company while Discovery will revert back to it's own independent company with no ties to the old company, which means the new Discovery will retain AEW TV rights (Dynamite & Collision) for TBS/TNT, however, the streaming rights might be different as AEW is on HBO Max now, but if this deal goes through and Netflix winds down HBOMax, AEW may be forced to look for a new streaming home on either a newly relaunched Discovery+, Amazon Prime Video or a deal with another company like Fox (and their Fox One streaming service). it's possible AEW may buy out it's international streaming partner Thriller TV (formerly Fite TV) which itself is going though financial issues where the company could be filing for bankruptcy soon, and plus AEW has a in house brand streaming service in sister promotion Ring of Honor Wrestling (Tony Khan acquired ROH from Sinclair in 2022, and he's co-owner of AEW with his father Shahid Khan, who also owns the Jacksonville Jaguars in the NFL and Fulham FC in the British Premier League in Soccer/Football/Futbol.).

3. ROH and TNA will not be impacted by this as ROH is streaming in house on Honor Club and WWE helped TNA get their new TV rights deal with the AMC Networks to air TNA Impact on AMC starting next month, nor will this impact all other wrestling promotions as they don't have TV rights deal with WBD or Netflix.
 
NPR ran two stories on "All Things Considered" on this deal. First, here's the interview with David Folkenflick, its media reporter:


And now here is the show's interview with Eric Deggins who reviews TV and pop culture:


A couple of notes. As of this writing, transcriptions for both interviews had yet to be written. I hope they are there by tomorrow morning.

Second, both warned that Netflix' purchase of WBD is facing a lot of backlash from both inside and outside of the Trump Administration and that concerns about monopoly go beyond the size of the company after the takeover to how much power the combined company could yield in the streaming entertainment space. Mr. Folkenflick specifically stated that many state Attorneys general as well as the European Union are taking a very close look at the proposed deal. Mr. Deggins notes for his part that a lot of people in Hollywood, including movie producers and scriptwriters, have raised concerns about the proposed takeover. (I say takeover because it is clearly the case that Netflix is purchasing WBD and that Netflix will run the show should the deal go through.)
 


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