Where have I been?
Busy end of the semester and then a fair bit of traveling with family and on the motorcycle. Still have a fair amount of travel coming up, but will try to keep up better here.
Warner Bros. Discovery following in the footsteps of News Corp./Fox and Viacom/CBS
Media companies seem to be fond of dancing a minuet of coming together and then separating recently.
Back in the summer of 2012, Rupert Murdoch announced he was splitting News Corporation and 20th Century Fox into two separate companies, primarily so that their stocks could trade separately – with News Corp. being devoted to books, newspapers, and database publishing; and Fox being devoted to entertainment programing (including, oddly enough, Fox News).
Viacom and CBS went a similar route early in the century, dancing back and forth before ending up together under the Paramount banner.They are currently dancing in circles trying to work out the merger of Paramount and Skydance Media sometime in 2025.
So now it’s the turn of Warner Bros. Discovery, a relatively recent creation when Discovery Inc. purchased WarnerMedia to strengthen their streaming portfolio, to become two separately traded companies. According to Variety:
The streaming company will encompass the Warner TV and movie studios, HBO and HBO Max and a games and experiences division. The company will focus on building out the HBO Max streaming service and investing in programming. Meanwhile, the TV company will include Warner’s TV networks around the world along with specific digital brands tied to the TV entities, including Discovery+, Bleacher Report and CNN’s new streaming products.
Media giant Comcast is also headed in the same direction before long. According to CNBC, it will be splitting into a streaming/cable company called Versant (as in short for conversant) that would include USA, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and Golf Channel as well as the movie web sitesFandango and Rotten Tomatoes. Comcast will then contain the NBC broadcast network, Peacock streaming service, Universal Studios, the theme parks and Bravo.
All this talk of dancing gets me thinking of the folks on Bridgerton cavorting to the sounds of the Vitamin String Quartet.