Media mergers? Maybe we should just yawn. This
doesn’t necessarily equate to long-term strength and leverage in the marketplace.
Ask Netflix why. Over the last decade it has been able to outwit the big legacy
TV-movie-based media companies -- that have merged or transitioned -- at their own game: offering consumers lots of different “quality” TV shows.
Netflix helped promote a
new way for consumers to access many new and library TV series and movie content without the need for “channels,” fancy high-cost "cable TV bundles," and all the rest.
Netflix, for all intents and purposes, has won this game at least for the near term.
With their backs against the wall,
Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global are now reportedly in talks for a possible merger.
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Richard Greenfield, partner and media analyst of LightShed Partners, believes that creating an even bigger streaming entity for these companies -- via their respective platform Max and
Paramount+ -- is the wrong approach.
The "bigger isn’t better" scenario has not worked for some time in legacy TV-movie media -- apart from Comcast’s purchase of
NBCUniversal over a decade ago.
Unfortunately, Warner Bros. has seen far too many variations on a corporate ownership theme.
This started with the Warner
Communications-Time Inc. merger in 1989. Transitioning to Time Warner Entertainment (1992-2001). Moving on, a decade later it became AOL Time Warner (2001-2003). Then went back to Time Warner
(2003-2018).
It was then on to AT&T’s purchase of the company in 2018 -- under its WarnerMedia thing -- only to last four years. And now to Warner Bros Discovery
(2022).
Longtime Warner Bros. employees must be exhausted with yet another possible company-wide combination.
To an extent, Greenfield's point is to abandon
all this corporate maneuvering. WBD should just go back to the focus on a well-known identifiable consumer high quality brand that everyone knows -- HBO.
Greenfield says the HBO name
remains a clear TV winner -- a TV brand still garners major Emmy nominations and awards. A broader view says this renewed focus should apply to all legacy TV and movie product competitors --
just focus on “quality” entertainment.
He may have a point in that regard. Think one key Warner Bros. big of intellectual property it released this past year, a kind
of out-of-the-box entertainment:
Yes, that may sound crazy. But this isn’t just a frivolous movie by any stretch. It's a whimsical re-imaging of a popular
young girl doll/toy.
And not just any doll/toy. “Barbie’ has become Warner Bros.' best-selling theatrical movie of all time. The theatrical movie monster
hit, “Barbie,” now at $1.4 billion globally.
Sounds crazy when you think the movie company has been around for 100 years. It sounds even more crazy that it is not
an action/adventure movie with no superhero.
Consider that Warner Bros. also makes top flight TV shows -- all this in increasing competitive streaming age. Top quality entertainment
repairs all missteps, lasting longer than any transitory media merger.
Wall Street investors are rolling their eyes over the latest news. A day after this news of this possible
merger both stocks --Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global -- were down 3% in mid-day trading. End of story.