[HN Gopher] Warner Eyes Paramount; Its Last Two Disastrous Merge...
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Warner Eyes Paramount; Its Last Two Disastrous Mergers Weren't
Disastrous Enough
Author : rntn
Score : 39 points
Date : 2023-12-22 20:09 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.techdirt.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.techdirt.com)
| metabagel wrote:
| > Outside of the massive debt load, the paper doesn't seem to
| think it's important to inform readers about the endless,
| pointless, and clearly harmful chaos from the company's last two
| shitty mergers.
|
| The NY Times seems to generally view business events through the
| lens of top management. When unions obtain wage increases, The NY
| Times is concerned about the effect on the business, and totally
| uninterested in families earning a living wage.
| ralph84 wrote:
| Families earning a living wage don't buy ads or subscriptions
| from the NYT.
| NewsyHacker wrote:
| How much of that is due to the fact that the NY Times, in spite
| of its nationwide (and worldwide) readership, still tries to be
| a newspaper for New York specifically, and therefore many local
| readers of its business section will be on Wall Street or
| executives in companies headquartered in Manhattan?
| ubiquitysc wrote:
| I mean what are they looking for here? They're criticizing a
| fairly to the point, straight information article for not being
| an opinion article.
| akira2501 wrote:
| The market no longer rewards "good business." It focuses on
| rewarding "clever financial tricks."
|
| It's short term thinking manifest.
| dehrmann wrote:
| How is this merger a "clever financial trick?"
| jrflowers wrote:
| David Zaslav clicked on a "This ONE trick the IRS hates!!!"
| link and then turned "shrink entire content portfolio" into a
| business model
| zzzbra wrote:
| I'm grateful that someone is at least doing the proper framing of
| these monstrous acts. Zaslav is a cancer.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > And executives at Warner Bros Discovery appear to have learned
| absolutely nothing from the experience [of AT&T acquiring and
| divesting Warner].
|
| > The New York Times indicates that Warner Bros Discovery boss
| David Zaslav is in early talks to merge with yet another company,
| this time Paramount (CBS). These mergers provide absolutely no
| real benefit to the broader world; they exist exclusively so the
| fail upward brunchlords in charge can nab giant tax breaks and
| put "savvy dealmaker" on their resumes.
|
| I agree that there might not be broader value, though there is an
| argument that Paramount and Warner both need to be bigger to
| compete with Netflix and Disney. What I disagree with is that
| this is just a move to boost there resumes. This is completely
| different from the AT&T deal. These are similar companies
| trailing the market leader, so there are benefits beyond empire
| building.
| ho_schi wrote:
| Oh no.
|
| Warner Brothers killed only four days ago the Global Cycling
| Network (GCN+). A novel streaming service providing global
| coverage of cycling, self made documentations and news. The
| paying consumers loved it. Because it was only what the audience
| wanted - a thing only possible with modern day streaming.
|
| The next victim will be _Star Trek_?
| dylan604 wrote:
| If the paying consumers that love it don't add up to cover the
| expenses of what it takes to deliver the content, then you
| can't blame them for pulling the plug on such a niche channel.
| I have no idea what their backend expenses are for them to
| operate a channel, nor do I have any idea how much that channel
| was earning. Just pointing out that feedback from an echo
| chamber of like minded people might be out of touch with
| reality.
| kmbfjr wrote:
| Just pointing out, having spent the first third of my career
| working IN television, that perfectly profitable programs and
| networks are discarded simply because they are not profitable
| _enough_ for the manager du jour.
|
| These entities are removed to make room for programming that
| appeals to the lowest common denominator, which after initial
| successes will provide ever lasting grief as to why
| advertisers don't want to buy on such LCD programming.
| thebradbain wrote:
| My prediction is Zaslav will... go ahead with all of this, since
| he only seems to execute ideas that everyone knows are terrible
| in both the short and long term.
|
| There's finally enough people noticing Zaslav's wrecking ball
| outside of Hollywood (which has been vocal in criticizing him as
| ruining everything since the WB-Discovery merger first was
| approved), including US government officials [1].
|
| I think the markets will refuse to reward him this time, and more
| importantly, I think the DOJ/FTC will refuse to allow this merger
| to happen, having seen the fallout from last time. I don't even
| think the studios' cozy relationship with the Democratic Party
| will save him this time, as I'm certain smaller studios and
| likely even Disney absolutely do not want this to happen either.
|
| From there I can only hope the board of directors will fire him.
| In an effective government, I would hope the whole WB-Discovery
| merger to be broken up, but I'm not holding my breath.
|
| [1]
| https://x.com/joaquincastrotx/status/1737669717223964730?s=4...
| JohnMakin wrote:
| > That's going to drive users not just to free alternatives like
| YouTube or TikTok, but back to piracy after a decade of inroads
| with U.S. consumers.
|
| Seriously this. I've avoided piracy for 10+ years now because the
| deal with these media companies was that I could buy affordable,
| easy-to-access media that I could consume on-demand. Since this
| was a better deal than browsing sketchy malware and ad-ridden
| sites or torrents and risking the wrath of my ISP, it was no
| problem to shell out a few bucks. Now dealing with that mess is
| objectively a better experience, where you can lose thousands of
| dollars of purchased digital media on some "fail upwards
| brunchlord's" whim.
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(page generated 2023-12-22 23:02 UTC)