Paramount Global and WB Discovery in merger talks

[Henadic Theologian]

The film and TV catalogs are going to be purchased, in whole or in part, by Amazon, Netflix and maybe others. All of these "valuable" catalogs people boast about on here are mostly of interest to old folks (who are most of the posters here).

Grease in your catalog is only marginally more important, financially, than having The Beverly Hillbillies.

The value of these assets is decreasing all the time and picking up speed.

A good chunk of the market are older Gen Xers and younger boomers and older Gen Ys, so those old classics matter. Plus they are fuel for spinoffs and reboots.

Even stuff like Friends has huge viewership among young folks, enough that piles of Friends merch gets made.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

A good chunk of the market are older Gen Xers and younger boomers and older Gen Ys, so those old classics matter.

The value of these properties are dropping like a stone.

Plus they are fuel for spinoffs and reboots.

You don't need Grease to make a struggling one-season flop of a streaming show. Anyone in that writer's room was perfectly capable of making a flop all on their own.

Meanwhile, new properties like Girls5Eva is cheaper to make, don't require cutting checks to people who created a movie 50 years ago and actually have the ability to succeed by not being stuck with the expectations of the five Pink Ladies superfans screaming at the scream every time a show deviates from Grease "canon."

Even stuff like Friends has huge viewership among young folks, enough that piles of Friends merch gets made.

You don't buy a whole studio to get access to Friends. You just buy the rights to Friends.

You are projecting your enthusiasm for these graying products on the larger marketplace.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

The value of these properties are dropping like a stone.

You don't need Grease to make a struggling one-season flop of a streaming show. Anyone in that writer's room was perfectly capable of making a flop all on their own.

Meanwhile, new properties like Girls5Eva is cheaper to make, don't require cutting checks to people who created a movie 50 years ago and actually have the ability to succeed by not being stuck with the expectations of the five Pink Ladies superfans screaming at the scream every time a show deviates from Grease "canon."

You don't buy a whole studio to get access to Friends. You just buy the rights to Friends.

You are projecting your enthusiasm for these graying products on the larger marketplace.

Grey products that still out do alot of new stuff and still make money. Don't underestimate the power of memberries, even among young folks.

Anyways this story was actually first brought to my attention about a month ago by Sci Trek, but I couldn't find any other sources at the time, just kind of sat on it.

But now Sci Trek's source has told them that this deal has been in the works for six months and is mostly about cutting costs and selling redundant assets, to reduce what will be a combined debt of 60 billion. The savings on streaming alone will be about 1.5 billion per year. They will also reduced their debt by selling off redundant assets like LA studio space,using that to reduce their debt.

The part in all this that really sucks is that there will be job cuts, that sucks. Not happy about regular folks paying the price for bad choices by the rich and powerful.

Also they may hire Netflix to run the servers and tech side of their streaming apps, but not merge with Netflix.

CBS could end up sold off too eventually.

The channel is a nice channel, it's worth subscribing to and watching.

 

[trappedslider]

As for Disney + it as is currently will be gone in March
https://insidethemagic.net/2023/12/disney-to-shut-down-next-year-nk1/

 

[Umbran]

As for Disney + it as is currently will be gone in March
https://insidethemagic.net/2023/12/disney-to-shut-down-next-year-nk1/

Talk about your misleading link titles.

Disney+ is merging with Hulu. Go figure, that they aren't maintaining two separate digital entry points. They'll merge them. Big whoop.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Talk about your misleading link titles.

Disney+ is merging with Hulu. Go figure, that they aren't maintaining two separate digital entry points. They'll merge them. Big whoop.

Basically it'll be like it is here in Canada, 1 service, because Canada never got Hulu all that stuff ended up on Disney+. That is better deal for consumers.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

Are you suggesting that they make more Godfather movies or a TV show?

I hope not. That just sounds terrible.

Because there's only so many times people can watch the Godfather

I yet to watch it. At least to completion. I keep getting bored and either falling asleep or watching some entertaining.

And given that WB is drowning in debt, hence all of Zaslav's frantic behavior, I think it's more likely the two of them get swallowed by someone bigger in a year or three.

Their stock dropped when people heard of a potential merger, so yeah, I think you're right. It doesn't look like even a merger can fix the issue, and they'll probably get taken in by someone else.

But shares of both companies declined today amid news of the talks, Warner by 5.6% and Paramount by 2%, and other analysts threw cold water on a deal being a cure-all

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I hope not. That just sounds terrible.

I yet to watch it. At least to completion. I keep getting bored and either falling asleep or watching some entertaining.

Their stock dropped when people heard of a potential merger, so yeah, I think you're right. It doesn't look like even a merger can fix the issue, and they'll probably get taken in by someone else.

The market can be stupid and short sighted, so I would go by the what the market does in the short term. Once the market understands the underlying plan, that could radically change.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

The market can be stupid and short sighted, so I would go by the what the market does in the short term. Once the market understands the underlying plan, that could radically change.

True, unless the underlying plan is just terrible and the market ends up un derstanding its terribleness. Then it can just can get radically worse.

Does Paramount and WB have enough good content to bring in new subscribers and keep them long-term?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

True, unless the underlying plan is just terrible and the market ends up un derstanding its terribleness. Then it can just can get radically worse.

Does Paramount and WB have enough good content to bring in new subscribers and keep them long-term?

It has a massive amount of good content, that will continue to grow. Max alone I think is nearly profitable.

I mean think of this list.

Combined they have

Scrooged
Star Trek
DC
Harry Potter
Top Gunn
Mission Impossible
Halo
Dungeons and Dragons
All the classic holiday Cartoon like Ruldoph and Frosty
Lord of the Rings
Grease
Godfather
Friends
Star Trek
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Terminator
Breaking Bad
Dexter
Gossip Girl
SpongeBob
Transformers
Dora the Explorer
Yellowstone
A Quiet Place
GI Joe
Rugrats
Paranormal Activity
Avatar the Last Airbender
South Park
NCIS
CSI
The Twilight Zone
The Real World
South Park
Rick & Morty
Robot Chicken
Hanna Barra
Blade Runner
Beetle Juice
Clash of the Titans
King Kong
Looney Tunes
Animaniacs
Tom & Jerry
Friday the 13th
Mad Max
Matrix
Police Academy
Conjuring Universe
Austin Powers
Lost Boys
Neverending Story
Babylon 5
Chuck
Big Bang Theory
Young Sheldon
Supernatural/Winchester
Veronica Mars
Fringe
Fresh Prince of Belair
Thundercats
Vampire Diaries
The color purple
2 and a Half Men
MEG
Barbie
Oppenheimer
Minecraft (movie)
Sherlock Holmes
Salems Lot
Attack on Titan
6 Billion Dollar Man
Popular Mechanics for Kids
Practical Magic
Mrs. Congenality
Scream
Nightmare on Elm Street

And an absolute ton more.

Plus between them all kinds of Sports and News. They have an absolutely huge library between them, probably bigger and much more impressive then Netflix honestly. It's even enough to challenge Disney.

Combined Revenue of 72 billion, combined debt 60 billion.

For comparison Disney's revenue was 88 billion, but 32.5 billion of that was from the parks, leaving about 56 Billion from everything else. Debt of about 46 billion.

Netflix's revenue is 31 billion to debt of 15 billion.