David Zaslav just might be the only dummy who thinks the WBD/Paramount merger is a good idea
The Warner Bros. Discovery isn't known for making "good" decisions, but this one might be his worst ever
Aux News David Zaslav
Yesterday, the entertainment industry was shocked by the news that Warner Bros. Discovery had been in talks with Paramount about a potential merger, which would turn two giant media companies into one giant media company, all under the terrifying watchful eye of WBD boss David Zaslav. The initial reaction, outside of hardcore IP fans who lost their minds at the idea of a WB character like Batman being friends with a Paramount character like Spock, was trepidation. Zaslav’s run at Warner Bros. Discovery hasn’t exactly been positive, given his obvious penchant for hitting the delete button on completed shows and movies, so potentially giving him access to the SpongeBob delete button and the Mission: Impossible delete button was a terrifying prospect.
But according to a report from The New York Times, there may be more to this potential deal than meets the eye (the Transformers movies are also owned by Paramount), and there may only be one person in the whole world who thinks it’s a good idea: David Zaslav himself. Apparently, investors aren’t particularly thrilled about the prospect, with both WBD and Paramount stock dipping yesterday, with one of the reasons being that this merged company would be “heavily reliant on declining TV channels.”
Also, we noted yesterday that Paramount is under a lot of debt ($15 billion), and while WBD does at least make money somehow, it is also in a ton of debut ($40 billion), which means a combined company would have several shitloads of debt to deal with and very little incoming cash to help deal with it. That means Zaslav would want to cut costs, which would inevitably lead to him destroying more iconic Warner brands and/or killing off more movies and TV shows the way he killed Batgirl.
Regular people are wary of it and investors don’t like it, but they’re not alone: The government would also likely be suspicious of a deal thanks to harsher new restrictions against this kind of gigantic merger and a tax rule that could hit WBD with huge penalties if it starts talking about mergers so soon after the last one. So why does Zaslav think this is a good idea if everyone else think it’s terrible? Is it because he’s a secret genius?
Actually, The New York Times says that some insiders suspect that these talks between Paramount and WBD are all a big show and that they were leaked to the press on purpose (you’ll notice that, after Axios first reported on the talks, Variety, Deadline, and The Hollywood Reporter were all able to separately confirm it was true through their own sources). The theory is that Zaslav wanted to bait NBCUniversal into making its own offer to merge with WBD, which would apparently be a better deal for Zaslav since NBCUniversal and parent company Comcast are sitting on more cash than Paramount.
That would mean David Zaslav is playing all of us, making the world dance to his little tune while he sets his sights on the real prize: Taking over 30 Rockefeller Plaza so he can gut it, leave it empty, and then somehow make money off it as a tax write-off.
56 Comments
I think it might be a good idea for him tho. It sounds more like we’re the dummies/consumers. But I don’t expect an outrage monger like sam barsanti to understand he’s screaming at clouds here.
Just stop. Enough with the corporate shell game. I don’t give a shit if Apple wants to buy WB and pay off the debt with the change from under its cushion. This is bad for consumers, but it’s also really bad for the people that actually makes all of the content consumers enjoy – both the creatives and the everyday people that do the blue- and white-collar labor.
I’m with you. I’m completely tired of this Zaslav guessing game. So until the guy is fired, if nothing else is mentioned about the “genius”, that’ll be a good day for America.
This might be a hot take, but Zaslav isn’t the problem. He’s a convenient scapegoat, but he’s just the symptom of a problem that’s been going on for decades. When AT&T bought Time Warner in 2018, plenty of workers sounded the alarm then about long-term plans getting derailed and entire divisions getting shuttered in the name of “streamlining” and “improving efficiency.” Nor did Zaslav force AT&T to spin off WarnerMedia to merge with Discovery. There are plenty of other entertainment companies that are playing this M&A two-step (I’ve been highly critical of Disney’s acquisitions, for example) that get rubber-stamped by pretending to be “good for consumers,” but end up just generating more frustration that comes at the cost of workers.Even now, a few people’s takeaway seems to be, “A streaming service with both Max and Paramount+ (or Peacock) content would be worth subscribing to.” Just, no. No. A bigger content library is not worth the damage this level of consolidation does to an entire industry or its workers.
Reaganomics in action.
“If a company has a gigantic content library, they’ll make it all available on streaming at a reasonable price!”- People in 2023, somehow
I’ve been of the opinion for years now that companies simply shouldn’t be allowed to even be that large. Companies that size warp the market by their sheer gravity, and there is no benefit to consumers that outweighs the damage they can do. In an ideal (yet still capitalist) world, no company would have a market cap greater than, say, ten billion dollars—and even that might be limited to companies that have to be that large because they can’t exist otherwise (e.g. large-scale semiconductor firms like Intel/AMD; it costs billions to set up a CPU fab).
I’ll tell you that one of the symptoms of this disease is when we started using terms like “consuming content”
He’ll just the point when all entertainment just started getting called “content”
I agree, but whenever I try to write a sentence that encompasses all art & entertainment (reading books, watching TV, going to movies, listening to music, play video games, etc.), I find that “consuming content” perfectly encapsulates that, to my own chagrin.
And yet all of those forms of media have existed simultaneously for a very long time before they were referred to in aggregate as “content,” and presumably there were turns of phrase in common use that also did the job. I’m not giving you grief, but I find that I have to push back against this absolute devaluing genericization of art and media and wish more people would. Our selection of words influences how we think about such things.
Yes they all existed, but they didn’t weren’t all owned by a single giant media corporation, which solely exists to make profits for shareholders. They hadn’t all been fed to Moloch – yet.
Again, totally agree, but the phrase “consuming content” isn’t just apt in everything it encapsulates, but also in how it excludes independent art, because I typically only use that phrase when talking about corporate-owned art and entertainment. But I digress. What would be the non-corporate speak way of saying “consuming content”? I’m really struggling to think of anything as succinct.
Even saying “the way we view media” sounds better to me than “the way we consume content.” The latter is just so so soulless.
Are you asking late stage Capitalism to stop? Next you are going to ask politicians who campaigns(and personal pockets) are funded by these mega corps to regulate them. None of this ever stops. It’s grows until it’s unsustainable and then it crashes. Merry Christmas 🙂
I’d love for late-stage Capitalism to stop, but no, I’m asking for the FTC (whose members are appointed and whose chairperson, Lina Khan has voiced support for strong antitrust regulation) to scrutinize these mergers & acquisitions more heavily. Real lasting change can only be accomplished through structural change, and in an ideal world, they’d take the next step and break up large corporations. I don’t see that happening anytime soon, so at this point, I’d really settle for them FTC to just look these CEOs in the eyes and say,
Sure but who are the appointed by? To much of that merger money flows into government pockets. No one is saying no sadly.
The President of the United States, and like I said before, the current FTC chairperson is vocally antitrust. She’s also only 34, so hopefully she isn’t in bed with corporate America like Ajit Pai. You’re right to be skeptical, and even if Lina Khan wanted to put an end to late-stage capitalism, she couldn’t do it single-handedly, and she would encounter resistance every step of the way. I’m just saying, I’m more hopeful now than I was a few years ago.
My first thought after hearing about this proposed merger (after “oh shit, he’s gonna bin Lower Decks for a tax writeoff”) was, “Wow, that’s gonna be a lot of debt!”Like, WBD was supposedly drowning in debt from the insanity of that merger. How the hell is adding Paramount—on top going to improve things?
He’s not adding Paramount. He’s letting WB/Discovery get absorbed by them. And Paramount is also deep in debt.
Except Zaslav would lead the merged company. He wants all the benefits of a merged company and then future benefits as well (selling WBD in a year with a massive library of inventory).
Actually its not clear who will lead the new company yet.
I am pretty sure it would be WBD buying Paramount
I believe even though they’re both big, Paramount is actually the smaller company, so Paramount would be the one getting absorbed… but hey, what do I know about mergers?
Exactly. Paramount is valued at $10 billion and potentially on its way to shutting down regardless of merger plans. There are reports they plan to layoff 1k+ staff in January regardless of merger discussions. WB Discovery is valued at $29 billion as of 12/20. Comcast is valued around $180 billion – it pays to be in the internet business. Each company is in a different league from the other. It is sad people will lose their jobs and more content will get pulled down over time; that will happen regardless of future mergers.
according to this well written and reviewed article, WBD is not in debt. It is however sitting on “ton of debut”
Mmm, a little debut goes a long way. A ton of debut is just askin’ for trouble, I tell ya’ what.
Bank: Do you have any capital? How are your profits?Zaslav: We have tons of characters and ip everyone loves but no idea how to use them and we’re 40 billion in debt. Bank: Here’s your 30 billion dollar loan! 🤝
All together: We’re too big to fail!
You walk into a bank and say “We own Batman” and they can’t give you a loan quick enough it seemsOf course how you manage a company into that much debt when you own the marketing juggernaut that is Batman baffles my mind
Step 1) Take out a loan to buy the company that owns Batman.Step 2) Borrow even more money to spend on original content for the streaming service that you started because Wall Street loves streaming.Step 3) When your subscriber numbers don’t grow as unrealistically fast as Wall Street was expecting them to, cut the company that owns Batman loose so that it can be free to merge with a company known for making reality television. Oh, and dump all the debt from steps 1 and 2 onto the company that owns Batman. It’s their new owners’ problem now.
If I pretend to like Susie, Cathy will get jealous and ask me out. #business
Zaslav met this really cool media company that’s interested in merging, but it’s based in Canada, so you wouldn’t know it.
I’m guessing Zaslav is enthusiastic for the merger because there’s something included in the agreement where he gets a few million for…something.
He’s eligible for hundreds of millions of dollars in stock options if he can get stock prices high enough. So he has a vested interest in short-term moves to increase the company’s valuation. Although I guess announcing another merger hasn’t done that?
this is literally the problem that is killing the entire planet and everyone on it.
Rich guy loves doing a business, film at 11.
Isn’t Rockefeller Plaza owned by NBCUniversal, not Paramount?
Which is why the article states right before: The theory is that Zaslav wanted to bait NBCUniversal into making its own offer to merge with WBD, which would apparently be a better deal for Zaslav since NBCUniversal and parent company Comcast are sitting on more cash than Paramount.
We need Zaslav kidnapped. Forever.
The horror of Star Trek being under David Zaslav
It’s so obviously a leverage play. Peacock and Paramount have to merge with one of the big streamers, but once one goes, who would buy the remaining one? It’s two player musical chairs one seat left.
because the readers on this site are entertainment industry minded there is rightful concern over IP we have attachments to being absorbed in a giant media company. but it feels like the tea leaves are trended towards a ‘big four’ of apple, max, netflix and amazon, and this would be the first merger in a set of three in which comcast acquires a combined paramount/wb discovery and they figured out the broadcast issues, and apple eventually acquires disney and figures out the park issues. point being what’s lurking in the background is tech hegemony, in which netflix is the unicorn streamer and the other three are major tech/infrastructure companies amassing giant enough content libraries to mimic the consolidation of broadcast in the streaming world. the unbelievable power of american capital, and the contradiction of being an american citizen, makes national regulation feel like charlie brown trying to kick lucy’s football. when the country itself is the global 1% its very hard for its citizenry to organize worker power, as the national privilege itself is constantly being incentivized against the true international labor solidarity which could meaningfully check the supply chains of amazon/apple/comcast.
No Disney?
They mentioned Apple acquiring Disney
I doubt Apple ever acquires Disney.
I can’t wait for the South Park episode where they skewer this tax-clown. They don’t even need to make an animated version, just use a picture of his actual face.
Keep this fucker away from Star Trek.
How are you defining “good decisions?” Is it based on what you think is best for consumer choice? There is room to criticize David Zaslav for his moves (ie the Max interface is so much worse than HBO Max, and no one likes seeing their preferred content cut), but for all his faults he has improved WB’s finances. A Paramount-WB merger does make some business sense for diversifying the content that would be available on Max and reducing subscriber churn. For one, the new company would own complete streaming and broadcast rights to the March Madness college basketball tournament while also bringing basketball, football, baseball and soccer onto a single streaming platform to retain sports fans year round. No question it would also bring a lot of pain and disappointment through further cuts, and some properties in the combined company might be sold off. But from a business standpoint there is a rational case to proceed.
Nice try, Zaslav.
Bullshit bullshit diversifying synergy bullshit bullshit.
How are you defining “good decisions?” Is it based on what you think is best for consumer choice? There is room to criticize David Zaslav for his moves, but for all his faults he has improved WB’s finances. A Paramount WB merger does make some business sense for diversifying the content that would be available on Max and reducing subscriber churn. For one, the new company would own complete streaming and broadcast rights to the March Madness college basketball tournament while bringing basketball, football, baseball and soccer onto a single streaming platform to retain sports fans and reduce subscriber churn. No question it would also bring a lot of pain and disappointment and some properties in the combined company might be sold off. But from a business standpoint there is a rational case to proceed.
block this merger!
You mean the guy who thinks the best way to run a streaming service is to get rid of all of its content? That guy?
I keep picturing Zaslav as the 80s guy from Futurama who died from bone-itis.
“Don’t you worry about blank. Let me worry about blank.”