No, it wasn’t an earthquake that rippled through Hollywood, Wall Street and just about everywhere where the worlds of media and business intersect yesterday. More like an avalanche.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL’s Joe Flint was among the first that reported what went down:
Paramount Skydance emerged victorious in the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery after Netflix said it wouldn’t match the David Ellison-led company’s latest offer for the iconic Hollywood property.
Netflix pulled the plug on its deal soon after the Warner board of directors said it determined Paramount’s $31-per-share offer for the entire company was superior to Netflix’s bid for Warner’s movie and television studios and HBO Max streaming service. Paramount is now poised to take control of the entertainment company, home to properties and brands including HBO, Superman and Harry Potter.
CYNOPSIS’ Lynn Leahey-lead team did an excellent job at hitting all of the other key talking points in the newsletter she dropped to her subscribers this morning:
Earlier on Thursday, Sarandos held meetings at the White House regarding the deal, following a warning from President Trump that the streamer would face “consequences” if it did not remove board member Susan Rice. The former UN ambassador had angered Trump when she warned during a podcast that corporations that “took a knee” to the president would be held accountable when Democrats returned to power.
While one WBD exec called Netflix’s decision a “gut punch,” according to Variety, CEO David Zaslav maintained the company is “excited about the potential of a combined Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery.”
WBD still must secure the necessary regulatory approval for a deal with Paramount, which is no sure thing. While federal regulators appear likely to give the go-ahead, “We think it is very likely that some state regulators – most notably, California Attorney General Rob Bonta – could attempt to challenge the deal. We think there is potential for European regulators to have a say as well,” said TD Cowen analysts in a note.
As part of its updated bid, Paramount raised the termination fee it would pay if the deal fails to gain regulatory approval (to $7 billion from $5.8 billion) and agreed to cover the $2.8 billion fee Warner Bros would ?owe Netflix for walking away from the merger agreement.
Shares in both Netflix and Paramount jumped during after-hours trading.
If you’re looking for winners and losers, look no further than the principles in this love triangle, each of who got something they coveted. For the Ellisons, they come away with a Frankenstudio all because unlike Sarandos and his co-czar Greg Peters they were willing to take on the leaking tugboat know as the WBD cable networks–most notably CNN. Which is certainly all that pere Ellison’s fellow billionaire misoygnist gave a rat’s ass about in the first place. Now they actually can clap back at that bitchy Kaitlin Collins who couldn’t even force a smile from her pretty little face, can’t they?
As for her current business daddy Yosemite Zas, one could easily surmise he’s dancing as close to a jig as he’s capable of. As the NEW YORK TIMES’ troika of Lauren Hirsch, Michael M. Grynbaum and Benjamin Mullin shared:
“We are excited about the potential of a combined Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery and can’t wait to get started working together telling the stories that move the world,” David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, said in a statement.
I give him six months max before he takes his buyout and the profits from selling off the former Bob Evans mansion he called home during his nearly four years in LA to a Saudi prince who is helping the Ellisons guarantee that enough money will still be flowing to run WarnerMount or whatever one decides to nickname it long enough for David to make RUSH HOUR 4, TOP GUN 3 or whatever niche project he might be personally jazzed by and join Bezos in a marina adjoining the Cote d’Azue. With the massive amount of debt that this combined entity will eventually have, I can’t fathom that the amount of movies that the individual studios were making will be continued. Sure, there’s a greater likelihood what will be made will wind up more often and for slightly longer stretches in theatres than if Netflix had been in charge, but there will ultimately be fewer showings per screen for those old-school Luddites to avail themselves of.
And if you think that’s where my dark vision ends, think again.
The sheer volume of networks (CNN aside) that are now under one roof virtually guarantees still more consolidation and emasculation. What happened to MTV Europe is all the more likely to recur in North America. The devolution of TNT to be little more than a spot carriet for secondary sports can now proceed unencumbered . And while HBO might be a slightly shinier trinket in this mystery box than it might have been side-by-side with Netflix, I’m dubious as to whether or not Casey Bloys sticks around long enough to take a victory lap. In Jeff Shell’s world, Cindy Holland has the keys to his kingdom–and she’s the architect of the monolith that Bloys has been forced to compete against over the last two decades. The Ellisons notwithstanding, Paramount has been a Shell game for a while now, and that’s certainly not gonna change in this scenario.
If one is seeking a silver lining in this, it may be found in the details that were released into the ether by the spin-meisters at ABC NEWS earlier this week that I am certain someone with Shell’s appetite for such has absorbed:
- For the 2nd week in a row, “World News Tonight” (8.867 million, 1.138 million and 843,000, respectively) more than doubled the performance of “CBS Evening News” (4.168 million, 475,000 and 350,000, respectively) in Total Viewers (+113%/+4.699 million), Adults 25-54 (+141%/+663,000) and Adults 18-49 (+141%/+493,000).
- “World News Tonight” increased its gap week to week over “CBS Evening News” in Total Viewers (+5% – 4.699 million vs. 4.494 million), Adults 25-54 (+2% – 663,000 vs. 647,000) and Adults 18-49 (+7% – 493,000 vs. 459,000), delivering its largest margins in both key Adult demos over 3 years — since weeks of 12/19/22 and 11/14/22, respectively.
- “World News Tonight” grew its margins by double digits year to year over the “CBS Evening News” in Total Viewers (+22% – 4.699 million vs. 3.862 million), Adults 25-54 (+40% – 663,000 vs. 475,000) and Adults 18-49 (+45% – 493,000 vs. 341,000).
- In fact, “World News Tonight” is delivering its largest Total Viewer season lead over the CBS program in at least 34 years — since at least the 1991-1992 season; the Nielsen electronic database started in September 1991.
I particularly love the declarative shade the last point casts. Et tu brute, indeed. And not exactly a ringing endorsement for the track record of current czarina Bari Weiss.
Which may explain the surprising amount of confidence that was expressed in a piece from THE WRAP’s Tess Patton:
Chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide Mark Thompson asked staff not to jump to conclusions Thursday after the news company’s parent Warner Bros. Discovery chose Paramount Skydance’s acquisition bid. “Despite all the speculation you’ve read during this process, I’d suggest that you don’t jump to conclusions about the future until we know more,” Thompson wrote in a memo to staff Thursday. Thompson assured staffers that next steps will be discussed in a town hall hosted by the news network, adding that WBD CEO David Zaslav is also holding a separate company-wide town hall this Friday to discuss the update.
What Thompson has going for him that Weiss doesn’t is actual practical experience successfully running large-scale media operations, including the NEW YORK TIMES that once canned her. And with Anderson Cooper already declining her advances to continue to work for her at CBS NEWS, I can’t fathom he’s all that excited about working for her at CNNBS or whatever it winds up eventually being called. I really wonder if Thompson may already have had a meeting or two to that effect–the kind that gave the likes of Sarandos the savvy to know when to hold ’em, know to fold ’em, know when to walk away and when to run.
So I’ll throw out there once again my nuanced thought that Weiss is far more reminiscent of Andy Cohen than Fred Friendly. An executive far better suited to be an on-air talent than a de facto suit. With the looming prospect of still needing to fill Stephen Colbert’s time slot with something most cost-effective and counterprogrammable, a Weiss-led hybrid of NIGHTLINE and POLITICALLY INCORRECT might be an ideal solution to many issues at once. And now it could potentially benefit from an encore run of consequence on CNNBS, rather than the afterthought experimental lab of CBS NEWS 24/7 that Weiss alleges is her baby.
Is it the most creative thought? Of course not. But if yesterday’s events reinforce anything at all is that creatives are taking back seats more than ever now to the money people. All of this exists first and foremost on paper. And we KNOW what scissors do to paper.
Until next time…