StubHub will report earnings for the first time tomorrow after its September 17th IPO. A top line and EBITDA beat is a near certainty, as the company went public with only two weeks remaining in its quarter and likely ensured that analysts on the deal left the room set up for a good start. Much…
Following the meteoric rise of TikTok (which broke 100 million users in 2020), Instagram launched Reels, its short-form, swipeable vertical video feed, in August 2020 and started monetizing through advertising in Q3 2021. Four years later, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Reels was now at a $50 billion advertising revenue run rate. This past…
Since Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount closed on August 7, 2025, the company has outlined its vision (link) and spoken to the press, but tonight marks the first time it has communicated directly with Wall Street. Beyond Paramount’s February 2025 S-4, the newly combined company has not provided updated financial guidance for 2025, let alone 2026…
Cogent’s quarter didn’t fix the story. The dividend is gone, the wavelength growth still hasn’t shown up as promised, and the balance sheet remains stretched no matter how management presents the numbers. The gap between what the company promises and what it delivers is becoming harder to ignore. We maintain the Sell rating and cut…
Earlier this week, we joined The Grill Room podcast, hosted by Dylan Byers and Julia Alexander (full episode embedded below, followed by key highlights and timestamps). The one-hour discussion focused on the future of Warner Brothers Discovery. We discussed why Paramount is likely to win if the Ellisons are willing to overpay, why it feels…
We are increasingly confident that Comcast will propose a combination of NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. in the weeks ahead, focused on the structure we laid out yesterday (Can Brian Roberts Build a Warner Bros-NBCUniversal Rival to Mickey Mouse?). Earlier today, Comcast Co-CEO Mike Cavanagh stated: On M&A generally, I mean, I think we’ve said repeatedly,…
New CEO Dan Schulman provided few details on how he would return Verizon to subscriber growth, his stated goal. What was once Vestberg’s “5 vectors of growth” has now become Schulman’s three pillars of something we’re still trying to decode. The only tangible elements of a new Verizon strategy seem to be no more price…
Twenty-one years ago, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts led a failed hostile takeover of Disney. Five years later, in 2009, Comcast acquired a 51% stake in NBCUniversal and grew that stake to 100% ownership in 2013. While the timing of Comcast’s NBCUniversal purchase was incredible, buying at trough valuations, the company’s conglomeration of assets has failed…
Comcast shares are down 21% YTD, 30% over the past year, and effectively flat over the past decade. Worse yet, the stock’s conglomerate structure has it trading at a discount to both its cable/telco and media peers, as shown in the table embedded to the right. Initial excitement around the in-process spinoff of Versant, Comcast’s…
In 2011, Netflix outbid HBO for House of Cards as its first major original, with the series premiering in February 2013 (though the first original was actually Lilyhammer in 2012). Days before House of Cards launched, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos (Chief Content Officer at the time) stated, “The goal … is to become HBO faster than…
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