Zaslav’s new Streaming & Studios outfit will consist of Warner Bros Television, Warner Bros Motion Picture Group, DC Studios, HBO and HBO Max, as well as their film and television libraries. Global Networks, meanwhile, will include premier entertainment, sports and news television brands around the world including CNN, TNT Sports in the U.S., and Discovery, top free-to-air channels across Europe, and digital products such as the profitable Discovery+ streaming service and Bleacher Report.
So basically it sounds like they’re going to remove CNN, Discovery shows, and live sports from HBO Max. They’re effectively undoing the merger that they did just a few years ago, which is great because it was clearly a terrible idea. Add in the fact that they’re also reverting the name of “Max” to “HBO Max” and it’s a complete surrender of this shitty merger.
Now the only thing left is to get rid of Zaslav, the originator of all these bad ideas.
That’s some intense bullshit business jargon cited in the article.
They’re effectively undoing the merger that they did just a few years ago
The big difference is that the declining cable networks and more importantly also the debt is apparently in the Global Networks company. Tbh i am not sure if there would have been any other solution to get those away Warner/HBO this clean.
Yeah the fact that all of the debt is staying with the merged company is tipping their hands. This is what Venture Capitalist companies do. This is why JoAnn fabrics is going under.
Buy the company, somehow move the debt for the loan to buy the company onto the books of the company being bought. Fail to make up for those loan payments after a few years and then skin it off, only to have it shutter.
I definitely agree that this is a big problem happening way too often, but not sure if it is the case here.
First of all we need to remember that the majority of debt came from AT&T splitting off Warner and saddling it with billions of debt (this is where i see the root for many of the problems), not from the Discovery side at their merger or the split now. Secondly as i understand it the linerar networks are obviously the declining assets, but still the ones with more profit/revenue.
That makes it a judgment call whether one believes that those will be able to pay off this debt, before they become irrelevant. This might indeed involve cost cutting measures and negative effects, but who would invest in this business today? So long as there are no public bailouts involved i’d be fine with letting the debt holders judge by themselfes if they are fine with this (i assume they had a say in allowing this?). I guess this might be sad for CNN and some of the sports programs, but i feel like most people here won’t care too much what happens with the likes of TCL or HGTV.
The part we probably care more about (Warner/HBO) is the one getting the clean slate. Whether they try to make it work as a studio with streaming service on its own or try to sell it to someone else we will see. So presumably not a situation like JoAnn fabrics or Toys’R’Us where a liked company was saddled with debt and bled dry.
So after this brief merger they are already splitting again? But this time Discovery gets loaded up with the declining linear television parts and I assume also the huge pile of debt?
Obviously share ownership adjusted accordingly, but I guess there would have been no other way to transfer the debt and declining business parts directly to discovery or someone else. Because no one would take that deal even for free.
I might actually see this as a win for movie/television fans as I doubt there’d been a faster way for warner/HBO to become separated from the debt and cable stuff.
The re-rebranding back to HBOmax makes more sense now.
It’ll be interesting to see how this changes CEO pay. Does Zaslav take a pay cut since he now manages a much smaller company? I doubt it. I bet he gets another performance bonus and on the other side the former CFO now CEO of the new company will also be paid handsomely to handle the crappy parts. Leading to overall even more management salary.
Time is a flat circle
