After thousands of layoffs following the 2022 merger between Discovery and Warner Bros. another 1,000 job cuts are planned.
“According to the source [the far-left] variety WBD plans to lay off around 1,000 employees across several departments, including finance, operations, production and streamer Max, as part of new cost-cutting measures.”
report addition“The majority of the job cuts were in finance, with fewer than 10 Max staff affected in total, insiders said.
This is about strengthening Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). Stock PriceAnother idea the company has floated is to separate its streaming and movie businesses from its cable TV networks.
Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ:WBD) is considering several strategic options, including selling assets or separating its Max streaming service and movie studio business from its traditional TV networks, according to people familiar with the matter. Financial TimesThis sent the company’s shares up 4.9% in premarket trading on Thursday.
The media giant’s CEO, David Zaslav, is considering spinning off its streaming and studio businesses into separate companies, which would give WBD’s (WBD) TV group most of its $39 billion in debt and give it more flexibility to invest in growth in its fast-growing streaming and studio businesses.
“WBD (WBD) has struggled with a weak advertising market, high streaming-related costs, a Hollywood strike, and several costly failures,” the report added. “The company’s shares have fallen 32.4% over the past year, wiping out a third of its market cap in that period.”
All of these media companies are struggling, and the main reason is the decline of cable and satellite television (CSTV).
For decades, CSTV served as affirmative action for the big studios. There was no benefit to making a profit. If you had one of the networks in your CSTV package (which about 100 million people did), the studios made billions of dollars whether you watched that network or not. This is called a carriage fee, and it is because of carriage fees that the lowest rated networks like CNN, Disney Channel, and MTV can survive. These networks would never survive on the merits of either ratings-based advertiser revenue or direct subscriptions like HBO, Showtime, etc.
As people move to streaming, they are cancelling CSTV packages by the tens of millions. That free money is drying up. And there isn’t as much money in streaming because, unlike CSTV, there is real competition for streaming money. CSTV can rip off customers because they have nowhere else to go. Not so with streaming. Netflix, Disney+, etc. have to attract and keep you. With options like Paramount+, Hulu, not to mention the great free streaming on Roku TV, FreeVee, Pluto, and Tubi, real competition means lower prices. This, in turn, means meritocratic programming is coming back. Unlike CSTV, with streaming, if you don’t want to watch, you don’t subscribe, so they don’t have a payment. And of course, that’s the exact opposite of how CSTV works.
CSTV is a one-legged stool that supports these left-wing multinationals, and now its leg is deteriorating, and the whole thing is falling apart because making money requires merit and the studios are full of personnel who have nothing but contempt for their customers.
And that’s great.
John Nolte’s first and last novel Borrowed time, Winning 5-Star Rave Reviews Submissions from our everyday readers. You can read excerpts here here And a detailed review here. Also available in hard cover and Kindle and Audiobooks.
