Warner Bros Discovery Board Rejects Rival Bid From Paramount

Warner Bros Discovery's board spurned Paramount Skydance's $108.4 billion hostile takeover bid on Wednesday, calling the offer "illusory" as it accused the studio giant of misleading shareholders about its financing. From a report: Paramount has been in a race with Netflix to win control of Warner Bros, and with it, its prized film and television studios, HBO Max streaming service and franchises like "Harry Potter." After Warner Bros accepted the streaming giant's offer, Paramount launched a hostile offer to outdo that bid.

In a letter to shareholders on Wednesday, the Warner Bros board wrote that Paramount had "consistently misled" Warner Bros shareholders that its $30-per-share cash offer was fully guaranteed, or "backstopped," by the Ellison family, led by billionaire and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.

Streaming Trash

[GoTeam]

If only they could dump all of their streaming library into a single location and pay the owner of the content based on viewership. There are a lot of reasons this would never happen, but anything that could prevent another production like "The Get Down" would be an improvement.

Re:Streaming Trash

[TwistedGreen]

I thought movie studios were forbidden to own movie theaters, but now I just learned those rules were repealed in 2020, so I guess nobody cares anymore about the antitrust implications of total end-to-end control of movie production and distribution.

Re:

[nightflameauto]

I thought movie studios were forbidden to own movie theaters, but now I just learned those rules were repealed in 2020, so I guess nobody cares anymore about the antitrust implications of total end-to-end control of movie production and distribution.

Antitrust stopped being a thing we enforced a long, long time ago. It's honestly surprising how long it took to reach the movie industry, considering the way we've been letting the business world consolidate different industries over the last few decades. Sure, there's some chatter about it here or there among the political class, but for the most part it's half a step forward, twenty steps back when it comes to enforcement.

Re:

[Gilgaron]

It is funny to reflect on the old payola radio scandals vs nowadays where it'd just be kind of an expected base level of graft. Before too long foreigners visiting here will get the same sort of reminders/training we used to get about how their local anticorruption procurement laws prohibit paying the sorts of bribes that are locally considered normal business practices.

Re:

[jacks smirking reven]

Movie theaters are less relevant than ever, we just need to flip the idea for the modern age: movie studios cannot own streaming platforms.

Re:

[thegarbz]

I guess nobody cares anymore about the antitrust implications

Anti-trust is governed by separate law which very much has nothing to do with the rules you were talking about. All that is really needed is for someone enforce the existing antitrust laws on the book.

Re:

[jonwil]

Streaming platforms are an evolution of TV, not movies. And entities owning both the production and distribution in TV has been a thing for a long time (in that the networks have been making their own shows or having shows made specifically for them with total control resting in the networks virtually since the beginning and still do today)

Re:

[PPH]

dump all of their streaming library into a single location

Why a single location? Do you want one movie theater in town?

Perhaps we need to look back at the antitrust cases, a major one involving Paramount. But now it's Netflix becoming the vertically integrated giant. Let multiple streaming companies, theaters, CATV operators and DVD producers bundle and sell studio content as they see fit. Thus allowing the consumer to select the package that is best for them.

Absent that, either Paramount or Netflix should be required to spin off their streaming business from pr

Re:

[Comboman]

>>Why a single location? Do you want one movie theater in town?

A movie theater has a limited number of screens and showings; a streamer does not.

A better analogy would be a video rental store. Would you prefer that each studio had it's own rental outlets and you had to drive around town and have multiple membership cards if you wanted to rent movies from different studios? You can still have competition (Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, mom & pops, etc) but each would have the ability to show conte

Re:

[PPH]

A movie theater has a limited number of screens

Movie theater seats would be a better analogy. We can seat the entire town. But we will only show what our parent company has produced.

A better analogy would be a video rental store.

Good point. I left that out of my list.

good

[melizeche]

Probably a good thing, handling CNN to the Ellisons before midterms would have really bad outcomes

Re:good

[abulafia]

Exactly that [msn.com] is a big part of the goal - do the same thing to CNN that has happened more widely at CBS.

It is a Hungary-style media rollup attempt. Buy up, intimidate out or (eventually) sure competing voices into submission.

The land of the free, baby.

Re:

[skam240]

Not just the Ellison's either,. We'd have a major American news network partially owned by the Saudi royal family who aren't exactly what I would call good people.

Re:

[Teun]

CNN is still the trusted US news outlet in the rest of the world.
When it comes to news BBC is great but they are not US.
Yes a few years ago a large group of Americans were fooled by Trump but they are finally starting to see through his lies and bluster, Americans that woke up to Trump can and will start to return to the CNN way of coverage.
There is a reason MAGA tries to shut down this channel.

Re:

[Teun]

Well spoken.

Re:

[CommunityMember]

Probably a good thing, handling CNN to the Ellisons before midterms would have really bad outcomes

Regardless of any potential changes to CNN (which are going to happen in any deal as CNN itself understands it needs to change to survive), the transaction would not have closed until after the midterms.

Re:

[Comboman]

Netflix doesn't want CNN (or any of the cable channels like Discovery) so they will be spun off into their own company if the Netflix deal goes through. Ellison/Paramount could still end up owning CNN even if Netflix wins their bid; they will just have to pay fair price for it instead of getting it thrown in for free with WB/HBO.

Re:

[im_thatoneguy]

Netflix's deal excludes the cable channels so those will still get sold to an oligarch after the Netflix deal closes. (if it closes).

Re:

[CommunityMember]

Double it and you have a deal.

More specifically, according to reports, Ellison (Paramount) had offered the same deal privately that they are now offering publicly, and the WBD board had rejected it. The board could not accept it now and later claim they had done their fiduciary duty in evaluating (and rejecting) the deal previously.

And, yes, if Paramount offers more, the board will need to reexamine the new offer (and money always talks). The $2.8B termination fee (that WBD would need to pay Netflix) would also need to be considere

Pay attention folks

[_dj6_]

It couldn't be more obvious how the power elite are consolidating control over the means of narrative and generative reality production. This is why Elon is such a threat to their program, btw. First we see Ellison is getting into OpenAI and AI data center control. Next he's involved in purchase of a top tier streamer and content library (which they want because no royalties on the data set to be used with AI to generate more content).

And if you've been watching Netflix you've noticed the content has shift

Re:

[gabrieltss]

Hey someone who actually "gets it"! But don't forget about the WEF's "Great Reset". And Klaus Schwab saying "You will own nothing and like it." And the WEF telling world governments to not allow private ownership of automobiles.