Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s lifeline to Paramount’s Shari Redstone not enough amid merger talk
NY Post
Merger talks between David Zaslav of Warner Bros. Discovery and the people over at Paramount are at a “very early stage,” I am told. So is the air of desperation for both parties and the media industry in general.
If you haven’t noticed, this isn’t a great time to be running a media company. For now, Comcast makes a lot of money, combining cable and broadband with NBCUniversal’s various programming. But its stock is well off its highs.
Investors are calculating weak earnings growth from crappy ad revenues, cord-cutting and a lot more. Comcast’s cable business is sputtering. People aren’t going to the movies, and its streaming service, Peacock, lost $3 billion this year.
Yikes!
Disney is an even bigger train wreck. CEO Bob Iger probably wishes he was back on the beach instead of pitching his studio’s increasingly insipid programming. Likewise, his streaming service is equally a disaster, and no one believes his wokeness (transgender greeters at Disney parks and same-sex kissing scenes in animated movies) is going to help the bottom line.
Disney+ has lost $11.4 billion since inception in 2019.
