• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 6 hours ago

The acquisition of a major named legacy TV/movie company may not yield the dominant engagement/viewing business that executives might yearn for.

There could be a rough road ahead of the outcome for who ends up buying Warner Bros. Discovery.

Only Paramount Skydance is projected to command a significant gain in market share over its competitors -- including pure-play YouTube, according to Lightshed Partners’ Rich Greenfield.

Paramount's current total viewing share, per Nielsen’s monthly distributor index, would jump to an average 14.2% by adding all of WBD.

It is currently at an 8% average share. With the merger, Paramount will top YouTube’s 12.4% average. The Paramount-WBD combo would also top Walt Disney’s 10.5% share.

By contrast, if Netflix just adds HBO, it only rises to 9.8% from its current 8.2%. NBCUniversal would go in a similar direction -- to a 9.7% share (from 8.1%).

Why just add HBO to Netflix and NBCU, and not all of WBD?

While Paramount seemingly has plans to keep WBD cable networks -- with expected cost-cutting synergies in tow -- NBCU does not.

Right now, its TV networks (except for NBC and Bravo) are being spun off into Versant Media. So only the HBO and Warner Bros. TV/movie production businesses would remain inside the future NBCU.

For Netflix, it would not be interested in having cable networks -- only the existing and library WBD content.

Greenfield writes: “While Netflix has rarely licensed content to third-parties, we suspect whoever buys Warner Bros. will shift a substantial portion of its output to its internal streaming platform to bulk up their respective platform, which is a core rationale for the acquisition in the first place”

He adds: “In turn, third-party supply is probably going down regardless of who buys Warner Bros.”

The bottom line is that total viewing share on its platforms NBCU and Netflix would not only not top YouTube, they would nota even beat Disney’s 10.5% total viewing share from all its platforms currently.

Greenfield also noted in this comparison that Netflix --the largest premium streamer -- is growing at a slower rate, especially against YouTube.

To complicate all this, there are still very visible regulatory issues that the Trump Administration and/or the Federal Communications Commission may throw the way of any of these deals.

Happy holiday end of-the-year merging!