WarnerMedia-Discovery Merger Sets Up Rivals for Big Decisions
May 17 2021 - 5:31PM
Dow Jones News
By Lillian Rizzo
AT&T Inc.'s WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc. decided they
needed each other to compete in the streaming-driven entertainment
world. Now, industry rivals must decide whether they should do the
same.
AT&T said Monday that it was spinning off WarnerMedia --
home to HBO, TNT and the Warner Bros. studio, among other assets --
into a new venture being formed with Discovery.
It is a marriage of two media companies seeking to protect
themselves from the decline of traditional pay-TV and bulk up the
content libraries for their streaming-video services.
Other media companies face similar pressures. "I think this will
set something off in the media landscape," said Neil Begley, an
analyst at Moody's Investors Service, about the merger agreement.
"There's companies out there without a dance partner and don't have
enough scale."
The transaction turns a spotlight on Comcast Corp. and ViacomCBS
Inc.
Comcast's NBCUniversal -- owner of the NBC network, Universal
studio and a collection of cable channels -- viewed WarnerMedia as
a possible target, should its assets come on the market, people
familiar with the matter said. NBCUniversal saw potential to pitch
WarnerMedia's HBO Max streaming service as a subscription offering
and its own Peacock streaming service as a mostly ad-supported one,
one of the people said.
ViacomCBS, owner of the CBS network and Paramount studio, is
seen as a potential alternative, although it has a larger stable of
small, low-rated cable networks, this person said.
Traditionally, media executives have worried that any such deal
bringing two broadcast networks -- in this case NBC and CBS --
under one roof might run into problems with antitrust enforcers,
the people said. But there could be an appetite to test that idea
in a modern entertainment industry where streaming giants like
Netflix now have more market power than broadcasters.
Robust original programming and deep libraries of TV shows and
movies have been key to hooking customers on streaming services.
Netflix began spending more on original content as rival media
companies reeled titles in for their own streaming platforms --
such as NBCUniversal's pulling "The Office" off of Netflix for use
on Peacock earlier this year.
Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav -- who will lead the new,
publicly traded company that emerges from the deal with WarnerMedia
-- touted the two businesses' content offerings Monday, voicing
confidence that their combined library could face off against
competitors. He noted that the two entities together will spend $20
billion on content this year, topping Netflix's previously
projected $17 billion content budget in the same period.
Media mogul and longtime deal maker John Malone said he had
anticipated AT&T's decision to unwind its media assets, a move
that comes less than three years after the telecom giant bet big on
entertainment.
"I knew AT&T was going to have to do something," Mr. Malone,
a cable-industry pioneer who owns a significant stake in Discovery,
said of the move. "This is all about economics and scale and
globality."
When cable TV and movie giant Viacom Inc. merged with
broadcaster CBS Corp. in 2019, media analysts and executives
believed the combined company would need to do further deals to
attain the scale needed for a successful streaming future. At the
time, analysts contemplated potential targets for ViacomCBS
including Discovery, Hollywood studio MGM, AMC Networks Inc. and
Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., which owns premium network
Starz.
The new Discovery-WarnerMedia entity, which is still unnamed,
could also be up for grabs in the coming years as a potentially
attractive target for Comcast or a rival looking to beef up its
content offering, Moody's analyst Mr. Begley said.
Under the terms of the transaction, AT&T shareholders will
hold a 71% stake in the new company, while Discovery shareholders
will take a 29% stake. Following the merger, the voting rights of
key Discovery shareholders -- including media-asset holding company
Advance/Newhouse along with Mr. Malone -- will be reduced, making a
potential takeover easier, Mr. Begley said.
Mr. Malone said, "It may well be that there are going to be
three, perhaps four global-scale direct-to-consumer companies, and
there'll be a whole bunch of niches."
"You're going through a restructuring of the industry for sure,"
he added, "but I wouldn't count out the ultimate value of a single
guy with a creative idea."
--
Benjamin Mullin
contributed to this article.
Write to Lillian Rizzo at Lillian.Rizzo@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 17, 2021 17:16 ET (21:16 GMT)
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