Originally Posted by Horizon (Post 36079709)

The old codger is at it again...

AT&T are going to spin off their WarnerMedia assets and merge them with Malone's Discovery.

And of course for those conspiracy theorists out there, don't be surprised if this becomes another one of Malone's great tax "planning" wheezes, with as much AT&T debt (acquired when AT&T bought Time Warner) loaded onto the new entity as possible.

And if anyone remembers my comments regarding ITV, look out for future action there too. Discovery owns a chunk of ITV and with rising ad sales, ITV could be an attractive buy for the new Warner/Discovery company. Check out my first post of this thread (and my original thread on this linked from the first post of this thread), and throw in Lionsgate and Starz into the cooking pot for good measure too.

Also, I would expect Comcast to do a similar thing in the end and spin off its media assets and merge them with someone like Viacom. Remember what's currently going on with VM and O2... read between the lines there.

Now, can the old codger do any better than this deal, of course he can! Don't forget Amazon, Apple et all are still waiting in the wings. $150bn companies might sound big to us, but when you're a trillion dollar company, $150bn is not such a big deal, save for a bit of indigestion. Get the rennies out, as the biggies are still to come in the next few years.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/16/att-...discovery.html

Originally Posted by Horizon (Post 36118568)

It's clear that all of Hollywood will be gobbled up by the tech giants pretty soon, so before that happens to this company, will there be one more step? I think there will be and I wouldn't be surprised if we see this new company go after Paramount.

Originally Posted by Horizon (Post 36118633)

I think they do have to.

I go back to what I said yonks ago about Murdoch's comments when he it was announced he was selling out to Disney and his comments went something like, "we used to be the big fish once, but there you go" or words to that affect. Meaning with the likes of trillion and now two trillon dollar companies, Murdoch thought there was zero chance he could compete against them. I think he was right and the same goes for all the rest of Hollywood.

There used to be the Big Six Hollywood companies:Fox, Disney, Warner, Sony, Paramount and Universal and there probably still will be in the future, except the names will be Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft, Google and perhaps Sony.

Originally Posted by 1andrew1 (Post 36118704)

Sony lacks a streaming arm or US network so a tie-up with Paramount might be logical.

Originally Posted by Media Boy UK (Post 36118720)

Let hope not look at a bad job Sony did with "CSC Media Group" after buying them.

Originally Posted by 1andrew1 (Post 36118721)

CSC was sub-strength but I agree that Sony did not do anything good with it. The CBS Network in the US is strong and Paramount + has potential so I could see Sony investing in these, reuniting Columbia with CBS.

Originally Posted by 1andrew1 (Post 36118704)

Interesting.

Warner Bros Discovery and Disney are now strong enough as they are.

Comcast is getting there so could remain independent unless it decides to split itself up between broadband infeastructure and content.

Sony lacks a streaming arm or US network so a tie-up with Paramount might be logical but could attract a counter-bid from Microsoft, its strong gaming rival.

Google doesn't seem keen on content acquisition yet.

Originally Posted by 1andrew1 (Post 36118790)

Murdoch quit due to scale. Warner Bros Bros Discovery and Disney have scale.

Originally Posted by 1andrew1 (Post 36118790)

Murdoch quit due to scale. Warner Bros Bros Discovery and Disney have scale.