Many are expecting a lot of consolidation in the streaming industry. This year, we saw AT&T sell off WarnerMedia and merge it with Discovery, forming the company of Warner Bros. Discovery. Recently, there’s been rumors that Comcast wants to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. To which, the new CEO of the company (and former Discovery CEO) David Zaslav point blank said in a company-wide town hall meeting that “we are not for sale, absolutely, not for sale.”
Of course, we know who that was really aimed at. That was aimed at Comcast and any other company that might be looking to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.
Why would Comcast want to buy Warner Bros Discovery anyways? Well, it’s going to be selling off its stake in Hulu in the very near future, if not sooner. And Comcast might want to merge Peacock with some other service, to make it more enticing. And to be honest, a mega merger with HBO MAX, Discovery+ and Peacock together would really help it compete with Netflix.
Since merging with WarnerMedia, Zaslav has been tasked with saving $3 billion across the company
With the purchase of WarnerMedia, for $43 billion, the combined company also inherited a lot of debt. Which the new CEO, Zaslav has been tasked with helping to cut. Initially having to look for $3 billion in savings across the company. That has led to HBO shelving Batgirl, and also cutting a lot of other shows and content that was already available on HBO MAX.
HBO MAX’s chief content officer, Casey Bloys said that after Netflix’s subscriber losses, it showed that not only is the market saturated, but it is also more feeble than it had been when COVID first started. When most people were stuck at home and needed something to watch.
Zaslav has also laid off about 30% of the company’s ad-sales staff. And many more layoffs are expected. Making content is expensive, and Zaslav was successful with Discovery+ because of the amount of reality shows it has, which are a lot cheaper to make than say, House of the Dragon.
2022-09-30 15:09:18