• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, June 22, 2023

Is it an HBO shocker that it might be selling TV shows to Netflix, according to one report in "Deadline?"

Not if you know David Zaslav, chief executive officer of Warner Bros. Discovery. For some time now, he has dramatically shifted the scope and operation of direct-to-consumer business (D2C): He doesn't want to put all its TV and movie content the media company makes to air exclusively on Max or other streaming platforms.

He wants to cut down on net losses that Max (formerly called HBO Max) has incurred. And last month to the cheers of some stock market analysts, WBD's D2C business moved a bit into the black. 

This started some time ago,taking some shows from then HBO Max and selling those episodes to third party platforms -- some international TV shows and otherwise.

Earlier this year, WBD took “Westworld “ and “Legendary” off of HBO Max. “Westworld” can now be found on streaming platforms Roku Channel and Tubi.

But news that it could be selling a TV show to the biggest competitor in the marketplace -- Netflix? That sounds outrageous.

Of course, linear TV networks and their sister TV and movie-production studios regularly sell TV shows to competitors. 

Those decisions came about because of some obvious constraints: Limited linear TV prime-time slots.

Other considerations for selling to linear TV competitors: Shows that are produced by a major TV production studio but don't fit its sister TV network's “brand.”

ABC's popular “Modern Family” a couple of years ago? It was produced by 20th Century Fox Television.

The streaming world has, of course, no limitations.

Some four years ago -- before legacy TV network companies launched their big premium streaming platforms, many maneuvered to get some of the popular big library TV shows back -- from none other than Netflix.

Warner Bros. did this for “Friends” to launch HBO Max in 2019. NBCUniversal did the same for “The Office” -- announced in 2019 to begin airing in 2021 to bolster its new Peacock streamer.

Now, it seems, at least for Warner Bros. Discovery, that there may be a return -- at least to some extent -- to those days, with more modest, network-defining shows. For example, reported talks with Netflix are focused around a popular HBO show “Insecure” which ran for five seasons.

Other legacy TV companies could be doing the same -- because they are still losing posting huge yearly net losses for the streaming business. They want a sightline to a secure programming business future.