Why Warner Bros is/isn't selling off its cable channels
There was a big deal / nothing burger news story floating around on Friday morning (Thurs, US time) that I should have included in the ABW newsletter, but I was trying to find an article that framed with an interesting hot take. But there just wasn’t one by the time I hit publish, so I left it out.
As keen media watchers are well aware now, as I type this on Monday, Warner Bros Discovery chief David Zaslav announced that Warner Bros Discovery would change it’s internal reporting structures so that the company has the option to maybe splinter off its cable channels into a new company or sell them entirely. This isn’t going as far as Comcast spinning its cable channels off into the new ‘SpinCo’ company (yet to be properly named).
It’s a nothing burger story because outside of those impacted internally with new work flow and a change in bosses/structure, it doesn’t yet have an impact on anything (except the WBD stock price, which shot up).
But, it’s a huge deal in that it is effectively David Zaslav saying that the entire WBD company is for sale (as if it wasn’t already very obvious) and that with this restructure, it’ll be easier for new owners to come in and choose the parts of the business that they want to keep. It is just tidier.
Where I was looking for a hot take was around this question: Why not follow Comcast’s example and just splinter off the cable channel assets into an entirely new company ahead of time?
None of the media reporting over the weekend that followed adequately answered that question. Instead, the closest anyone got to it was Puck’s Dylan Byers suggesting that it gives a sale process “optionality”.
But, here’s my thinking: Comcast loaded its channels up with what are now effectively zombie cable brands, along with two of the few that still have tremendous value and brand equity (CNBC and MSNBC). As WBD looks to sell off it’s own assets, it really should be doing the same. Channels like the Discovery channels, TNT, HGTV, Food Network, and Turner Classic Movies have slightly more value to them than the Comcast channels, but there’s still a need to provide a value anchor with CNN.
For most buyers kicking the tyres on Warner Bros Discovery, CNN is a headache. It’s politically out of favour with the incoming Trump administration, for many potential suitors it doubles up on news assets they already own, and it isn’t exactly the prestige brand it was a decade ago with a notable ratings decline in recent years.
But… and yes, we’re coming back to one of my hobby horses… CNN would fit into Apple so incredibly well.
My hobby horse talking point is that of any large media or tech company, it fits seamlessly into Apple. HBO can replace the black hole Apple TV+ comfortably, WBD’s other entertainment assets plug a hole in Apple TV+’s library shortfall, an Apple TV hardware product that is bolstered by WBD content (including using that deep library for a robust FAST offer to take on dark horse Samsung TV+) is a win for the company - also see: Apple Vision Pro, and then you have CNN which makes a far better sell for Apple’s services bundle than Apple News ever could.
Apple are famous for not making large scale acquisitions. And yet, it is wasting billions already on Apple TV each year, it lacks a clear selling point for the Apple Vision Pro, the services bundle lacks sizzle, and the Apple TV hardware seems like it has ever-diminishing value in the face of better smart TVs in the market and strong competitors in the connected hardware space. WBD seems like a very elegant solution/building block for Apple.
And surely that is in mind as David Zaslav is reshaping the company as it readies for a sale.
…but is Tim Apple likely to be all that enthused about such a huge, transformative purchase as he sets in place a succession plan for his not-too-distant company exit?
Meanwhile…
HBO and Max is winding down its deal with Sesame Workshop to produce new episodes of Sesame Street. The upcoming 55th season will be the last. Max says it is moving away from kids TV programming, focusing more on adult and family entertainment.
Now Sesame Street is on the market and looking for a new partnership. My eyes are firmly on Comcast with it’s feels-like-traditional-TV streamer Peacock which could use a big brand in kids TV that is exclusive to the platform…
Read: THR
ABC buys off Trump
The US ABC has paid $15m in an arrangement to settle a defamation lawsuit brought upon by Donald Trump over comments made by GMA host George Stephanopoulos.
Trump accused Stephanopoulos of harming his reputation by saying multiple times on-air that he had been found liable for raping E. Jean Carroll.
This is the NYT take on the story:
Several experts in media law said they believed that ABC News could have continued to fight, given the high threshold required by the courts for a public figure like Mr. Trump to prove defamation. A plaintiff must not only show that a news outlet published false information, but that it did so knowing that the information was false or with substantial doubts about its accuracy.
“Major news organizations have often been very leery of settlements in defamation suits brought by public officials and public figures, both because they fear the dangerous pattern of doing so and because they have the full weight of the First Amendment on their side,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor of law at the University of Utah.
“What we might be seeing here is an attitudinal shift,” she added. “Compared to the mainstream American press of a decade ago, today’s press is far less financially robust, far more politically threatened, and exponentially less confident that a given jury will value press freedom, rather than embrace a vilification of it.”
And yes, ABC could have fought it. But is the headache and $15m worth it when there are far greater ramifications for parent company Disney as it goes about its broader business under a Trump administration. The agreed-upon $15m payout, plus an additional $1m in legal fees, will be made to support Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum. That’s nothing compared to safeguarding Disney from govt interference over the next four years on issues relating to M&A activity, the theme parks, etc.
O-T’s weird Presumed Innocent accent
The greatest thing to happen on TV in 2024 was the weirdo voice work delivered by Presumed Innocent star O-T Fagbenle.
Here he is explaining his choice in an interview with Deadline:
You know what’s funny? I never get to do my own accent because even if I’m playing English, my accent has been influenced by America and Nigeria enough that even English people often ask me where I’m from. So in every single character, I’m making some kind of choice. It just so happened that in this one, when I was studying these politicians, I was like, “They have weird voices.” They’ve got these peculiar ways of phrasing things. I started studying all the most annoying voices I could think of. The most smarmy ones, like Alan Rickman in Die Hard. I talk about the bad guy from Ghostbusters a lot. Yeah, I really had that voice somewhere in me, so I carved it out, and I worked with some dialect coaches. Joe Gold is one of the guys who helped me find the center of that voice. And, yeah, it caused quite a stir [Laughs].
In news not-at-all surprising, the Amazon Freevee original Dinner With The Parents (a US remake of the far better UK comedy Friday Night Dinner) has been cancelled. Even if Freevee hadn’t been absorbed by Prime Video, this show still would have been canned. Read: Deadline
A four-episode Malcolm In The Middle reunion series is in the works for Disney+. Read: Dark Horizons
Entourage showrunner Doug Ellin is hustling to get a new TV show up - another behind the scenes meta comedy about Hollywood. I sense that the legacy of Entourage would be greater if the show had ended after just three or four seasons (it ran seven and a movie). The problem with Entourage wasn’t the misogyny - it was that the last four seasons were an unfunny chore of a show. Read: THR
AI Topics is Amazon’s new strategy to serve content recommendations to Prime Video users. Read: The Streamable
Conan O’Brien’s parents, Dr. Thomas O’Brien and Ruth Reardon O’Brien, died three days apart from one another. Read: THR
Whiskey on The Rocks debuts on Hulu Jan 22.
The series is a playful take on what truly happened during the dramatic days at the turn of the month between October and November 1981, when the Soviet submarine U-137 ran aground in the Karlskrona archipelago.
That’s the newsletter for today.
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