Earlier today, Warner Bros. Discovery filed a 14D-9 explaining the entire chain of events that led the WBD Board of Directors to move forward with Netflix’s offer and reject Paramount’s offer. While the document addresses many issues we have written about (link), there were a significant number of new “nuggets” of information that illustrate just…
As the Warner Bros. Discovery saga drags on, there are several important Paramount questions investors need answered: 1) Why is Paramount Buying All of WBD vs. Just Warner Bros. & HBO? Given the growing headwinds facing linear TV, particularly general entertainment cable networks, why would anyone want to own more linear TV in 2026 and…
Since YouTube TV launched in early 2017, it has offered a single bundle of channels, which has risen in cost from $35 at launch to $83 today. Programmers, desperate to sustain their cable network businesses, with most suffering from a poor price/value relationship, have jammed in ever more channels and bloated the bundle. While YouTube…
Verizon is cutting service prices on both entry-level and premium mobile rate plans to jump-start subscriber growth. Whether this proves to be a short-lived promotion or not, it is a clear negative signal for the industry, as it points to renewed pressure on ARPU, which is critical to revenue stability in a mature, fully penetrated…
The overwhelming investor and media presumption is that only one bidder, Paramount, has a regulatory fast track to an acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. That viewpoint is based on President Trump’s affection for Paramount/CBS following the Skydance transaction. While there is no doubt that Paramount would be Trump’s preferred bidder and would likely not face…
On Friday evening, CNBC reporter Alex Sherman tweeted out (link): “Comcast’s bid for WBD’s streaming and studio assets did not include spinning off NBCU.” We have assumed Comcast would spin-off NBCU (ex-TV stations and to-be-spun Versant) and merge it with Warner Bros. Discovery, which would then spin-off its global linear cable network businesses, called Discovery…
After we highlighted content ingestion as a critical battleground issue in future MVPD/vMVPD negotiations in September (link), former WarnerMedia CRO, Tony Goncalves, posted the following to LinkedIn (reprinted below with his permission): To ingest or not to ingest. That’s the question. Thank you Rich Greenfield for reminding me of the journey.Streaming was supposed to break…
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…
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