[Blubatt]

Im not worried. WBD/Paramount, if it did merge, would have to divest itself of a lot of its assets to even think about going through.

[VMPhil]

Brilliant Verge article on why this is such a bad idea:

www.theverge.com 

A merging of Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount would be very bad - The Verge
Warner Bros. Discovery is in talks to merge with Paramount. For consumers that w…
  Source: www.theverge.com

[Stuart]

Brilliant Verge article on why this is such a bad idea:

www.theverge.com 

That's a fascinating article, and I think they've hit the nail on the head regarding moving back 100 years to having only a handful of people deciding about most of any new media output.

Perhaps in the UK we have something of a happy compromise at present, where companies collaborate on individual productions rather than jump in to bed will fully fledged mergers. However, Comcast and Paramount Global have their fingers firmly in the UK media pie, so who knows what will eventually happen here?

[F4C]

This is probably their way of cutting their losses incurred by investment in streaming whilst maintaining their own service rather than giving up and selling all content to Netflix.

The streaming market in the US is only really going to sustain maybe five streaming services maximum- at the minute there’s seven. Amazon, Apple and Disney I think will have deep enough pockets to keep going, Netflix seem safe. So there’s only going to be room for possibly one more profitable service and maybe WBD and Paramount reckon by merging they can take that space.

From a UK standpoint, one service encompassing all the HBO shows, the BT Sport and Eurosport stuff (the TNT brand is terrible), Discovery documentaries and Paramount’s back catalogue sounds compelling. Dread to think how much they would charge for the privilege, mind.

Whatever the case, the regulators both sides of the Atlantic will be wanting to ask questions.

[Kunst]

The TNT Sports make no sense

Either have TNT or just use something else
Hopefully the Eurosport branding will be safe

[Adsales]

Brilliant Verge article on why this is such a bad idea:

www.theverge.com 

I appreciate the sentiment of the article but it misses the point. Consolidation will and, like it or not, must happen. There is simply no money to support the current amount of media companies.

WBD is $45bn in the red.
Paramount $15bn.
Comcast $97bn
Disney $48bn

Disney is healthy overall due to its total value and Comcast is ok as well - both have healthy debt to EBITDA ratios.

WBD and Paramount on the other hand have a horrible debt to EBITDA ratios.

Networth for the 4 companies is

Paramount $9.77bn
WBD $28bn
Disney $165bn
Comcast $177bn

Both Disney and Comcast have superb diversification of revenue streams but Paramount and WBD do not.

Add in the complications of Netflix (despite doom and gloom reporting, it actually has a very healthy debt to EBITDA ratio and its net worth is $215bn), Apple (let's don't go there... its pockets are literally endlessly deep) and Amazon (same as Apple).

Either Paramount or WBD will eventually go, be bought or merged unless some kind of miracle happens. The longer it takes until that happens, the more damaged they will become as their the networks and cable channels will decrease in value, create more debt and will become of less and less interest to anyone. Their streamers are another problem of course. Even adding Max and Paramount+ subscriber numbers together doesn't put them ahead of Disney+, let alone in touching distance of Prime or Netflix. If you combine Disney+ and Hulu subscribers, then Disney is ahead of Amazon and behind Netflix with all three having healthy numbers in excess of 200 million. Max and Paramount+ completely trail them with less than 80 million each.

Additionally, both are yet again behind from a tech and service perspective as neither offer basic, ad-supported tiers.

And then WBD obviously has the Discovery+ issue... subscriptions are given away for free everywhere in order to show some kind of growth.

So the reality is that WBD and Paramount either merge and shed everything that doesn't make profit and turn themselves into a lean, profit-making business... or one of them gets snapped up by someone else.

[Brekkie]

I think them merging and sheding everything that doesn't make a profit though is exactly the point of the article though - it is not good for the creative industry or the viewer. However neither is both of them going bust but I don't actually see how them merging would actually solve eithers financial woes at the moment, and WBD seems in a worse state than either WB or Discovery were prior to their merger.

Arguably the best option for both would be to pull out of the streaming market completely and concentrate on supplying content to the other streamers instead.

[RhysJR]

Apparently this has been called off

www.cnbc.com 

Warner Bros. Discovery halts Paramount Global merger talks
Warner Bros. Discovery has paused merger discussions with Paramount Global as th…
  Source: www.cnbc.com

[Keith]

Apparently this has been called off

www.cnbc.com 

Thank goodness for that, as it would have probably seen the partial destruction of Paramount, based on what's happens at WBD since they merged. Viewers wouldn't have benefitted, as I'm sure more TV series and films would have been needlessly cancelled for the purpose of tax write-offs, regardless of how near complete they were.

Perhaps interesting to note was the other key points in that article.

* Skydance Media is still doing due diligence on a potential transaction with Paramount Global, the people said.
* Comcast isn't interested in buying any Paramount Global assets but would consider commercial partnerships, like bundling or merging Peacock and Paramount+.

[VMPhil]

Thank goodness for that, as it would have probably seen the partial destruction of Paramount, based on what's happens at WBD since they merged. Viewers wouldn't have benefitted, as I'm sure more TV series and films would have been needlessly cancelled for the purpose of tax write-offs, regardless of how near complete they were.

Perhaps interesting to note was the other key points in that article.

Indeed and I think the future of streaming services is going to be bundles - the idea that all these services will continue to exist as individual silos seems fanciful to me, especially with the increasing cost of them, and merging huge media companies together to solve this problem is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.