WBD Acquisition Thread

[RandomMe]

Showtime is premium cable channel that is akin to HBO.

Paramount want to make Paramount+ more important but many customers haven't abandon the Showtime.

Also, Paramount didn't follow WB's example to offer free upgrade to Paramount+ for all Showtime subscribers.

If the merger gets through there will likely be a slow integration into HBO

 

[Moe]

If the merger gets through there will likely be a slow integration into HBO

It means Paramount would have to renegotiate with a lot of linear TV providers that is extra headache and tons of work.

 

[JulianRO]

European Commission EVP Henna Virkkunen on Film Funding Overhaul and Paramount-WBD Merger: It ‘Might Have to Be Reviewed Under Several EU Regulatory Frameworks’ (EXCLUSIVE)

European Commission EVP Henna Virkkunen on film funding overhaul and Paramount-WBD merger.

variety.com

So the EU will review the acquisition carefully.

 

[PF9]

Interesting, some of my families started move to Ohio in 1920s with several still living in Ohio.

It is expensive to stay there when you retires because of higher property tax.

I'm really want to visit Cleveland and Cedar Point, also nice trip on I-90 to Niagara Falls.

I thought National Amusements went defunct and morphed into Paramount Skydance.

I should also note that Looney Tunes characters were part of the now-defunct Geauga Lake theme park in Bainbridge Township in Geagua County (but with an Aurora address, which is based in neighboring Portage County, which in turn borders Mahoning County which Youngstown is part of) when it was Six Flags Ohio. I went there twice during that era.

 

[awinger24]

Paramount Hopes to Finalize Warner Bros. Merger as Early as July | Report

Ellison wants to close the merger as early as July 15th. If this actually happens, it’s over for WB.

 

[Elijah Abrams]

Paramount Hopes to Finalize Warner Bros. Merger as Early as July | Report

Ellison wants to close the merger as early as July 15th. If this actually happens, it’s over for WB.

It’s against antitrust laws for him to close the merger that soon.

 

[JulianRO]

Paramount Hopes to Finalize Warner Bros. Merger as Early as July | Report

Ellison wants to close the merger as early as July 15th. If this actually happens, it’s over for WB.

Impossible to close it that early.

 

[lowell]

Impossible to close it that early.

Yup, we don't really know anything else that can happen between now and that date just yet so essentially he's jumping to conclusions as fast as he can to avoid the costly ticking fees.

If the regional war ends up escalating further, who's to say there isn't a possibility of the financing behind Ellison's pursuit collapsing like a flimsy house of cards?

The pursuit could easily get derailed by time-consuming regulatory reviews, preliminary injunctions, other court orders, etc.

That's not to mention, it also depends on Oracle stock staying the same, what happens if that isn't the case at all because OpenAI does drag them down? Zaslav, Malone, & the board will want Larry to have $7B on hand to write them a check in case something unexpected happens.

But even though the concept of the admin ordering Skydance to steer CNN's midterm coverage in their favor was kind of far-fetched months ago, it's probably another reason for Ellison being deadset on July, even though that's not guaranteed at all.

 

[JulianRO]

S&P Global Will Lower Paramount’s Credit Rating Even More After Warner Bros. Merger

The firm expects the media giant's leverage to remain elevated for the next two years and only start to improve in 2028

www.thewrap.com

They forget the fact that Ellison can't, and won't keep the promises he said many times, especially with the movies. Best case scenario would be probably to mass-close the barely watched channels from PSKY and WBD in order to save some money. Which I'm 100% sure that's what it will happen.

 

[lowell]

S&P Global Will Lower Paramount’s Credit Rating Even More After Warner Bros. Merger

The firm expects the media giant's leverage to remain elevated for the next two years and only start to improve in 2028

www.thewrap.com

They forget the fact that Ellison can't, and won't keep the promises he said many times, especially with the movies. Best case scenario would be probably to mass-close the barely watched channels from PSKY and WBD in order to save some money. Which I'm 100% sure that's what it will happen.

It's not just that, though, David Ellison has been entirely dependent on his father Larry, who's using Oracle stock as the loan collateral, to keep Skydance afloat over the years.

With how much debt they're taking on to fund its AI and data center buildout investments in conjunction with OpenAI, if things don't bear fruit, it can very well drag Oracle down and upend the financing for David's WarnerDiscovery pursuit.

 

[JulianRO]

With how much debt they're taking on to fund its AI and data center buildout investments in conjunction with OpenAI, if things don't bear fruit, it can very well drag Oracle down and upend the financing for David's WarnerDiscovery pursuit.

If the AI bubble keeps popping even more this year, it's going to drag down Oracle a lot.

 

[lowell]

If the AI bubble keeps popping even more this year, it's going to drag down Oracle a lot.

If Larry has to divert his purse strings to save Oracle due to both OpenAI and Oracle being dragged down by the AI stock bubble's possible popping, Skydance & Annapurna will be the casualties because he's not choosing those vanity startup projects over his own beloved creation.

 

[JulianRO]

In that scenario I'm curious if WBD continues splitting or, if there will be another bidding war. But either way, this will take even more time for WBD to stabilize than before.

 

[lowell]

In that scenario I'm curious if WBD continues splitting or, if there will be another bidding war. But either way, this will take even more time for WBD to stabilize than before.

The $7B check combined with the ongoing debt reductions together would have a meaningful impact in whittling down the debt load, though, so there's also a possibility for WarnerDiscovery to stay as is with no split.

The S&S/GN split move would've just made suitors come earlier, not delay it and then saddle GN with most of the debt load.

Zaslav can just fold Discovery+ into HBO Max to bring down the streaming operation costs, finish the international expansion, and continue to keep paying down the debt further because that would just raise the overall valuation over time.

Once that's all mostly done, Zaslav & Malone can begin another sale process of the company on their own accords. Whether that leads to another bidding war or not remains to be seen.

 

[JulianRO]

Zaslav can just fold Discovery+ into HBO Max to bring down the streaming operation costs, finish the international expansion, and continue to keep paying down the debt further because that would just raise the overall valuation over time.

While HBO Max still has a lot of good content being removed from the platform. Some moved to Tubi, even.

 

[lowell]

While HBO Max still has a lot of good content being removed from the platform. Some moved to Tubi, even.

Zaslav even recently said they're hitting their goal of 150M global subscribers by the end of this year so that international expansion's definitely getting halfway there.

 

[zakawer2]

discovery+ has already been closed down in Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain and Brazil, while the WBD-operated version of the service was discontinued in Canada in favor of a local version operated by Rogers Sports & Media (note that Canada is an unusual market where the streaming rights to most of WBD's content is segmented between different companies).

Heck, WBD even moved TNT Sports from discovery+ to HBO Max in the United Kingdom when the latter was launched on March 26th.

I wonder if they could shut down discovery+ in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Austria and Italy, and completely move all of its content to HBO Max in the aforementioned European markets.

The only market other than the United States where I can see discovery+ surviving for longer would be India, and that's purely because the standalone HBO Max service is still not available there yet.

 

[RandomMe]

Last few weeks before it approves or it fails.

 

[themidnightlore]

Does HBO Max offer the streaming of the TV channels? If not, it's not viable in Italy and in UK, as D+ hosts the streams for their FTA channels.
I wouldn't be surprised if the same happens in Germany and the Nordics.

 

[zakawer2]

Does HBO Max offer the streaming of the TV channels? If not, it's not viable in Italy and in UK, as D+ hosts the streams for their FTA channels.
I wouldn't be surprised if the same happens in Germany and the Nordics.

HBO Max does indeed offer livestreams of linear channels depending on where you live.

Here in Denmark, users with a Premium subscription can watch a limited selection of WBD's channels available on TV providers in the country (but for some reason not all of them). Here's a list for Denmark:

• Kanal 4
• Kanal 5
• 6'eren
• Canal 9
• CNN International
• TLC
• Investigation Discovery
• Discovery
• Eurosport 1
• Eurosport 2

The Animal Planet, Discovery Science, Travel Channel, Cartoon Network and Cartoonito channels cannot be livestreamed on HBO Max in Denmark, though content from them can otherwise be found on the service to varying degrees.

In France and Turkey, subscribers can actually livestream Cartoon Network, however.

So yeah, WBD could feasibly offer all of its linear channels in the UK, Germany and Italy (or at least all of its free-to-air linear channels) as live channels that HBO Max subscribers could access, depending on the level of their subscription.

It's yet another point against discovery+, which genuinely is starting to become less and less necessary for WBD to continue operating and maintaining in Europe—merger or no merger…

The only thing that could force a discovery+ revitalization at this point would be if WBD returns to its original plans to split into Warner Bros. and Discovery Global, since Warner Bros. would retain the HBO Max service while Discovery Global would be left with discovery+.