Warner Bros Discovery Eyes Paramount Merger, Because Its Last Two Disastrous Mergers Apparently Weren’t Disastrous Enough
By now we've well established that this particularseries of media mergers- which began with AT&T's doomed acquisition of Time Warner and ended with Time Warner's subsequent spin off and fusion with Discovery - were some of the dumbest, most pointless business" exercises ever conceived by man.
The idiotic saga burned through hundreds of billions in debt, saw more than50,000 people lose their jobs, killed off numerous popular brands (like Mad Magazine and HBO), created oceans of animosity among creatives, and resulted in a Max streaming service that's arguably dumber and of notably lower quality than when the entire expensive gambit began.
And executives at Warner Bros Discovery appear to have learned absolutely nothing from the experience.
The New York Times indicates that Warner Bros Discovery boss David Zaslav is in early talks to merge with yet another company, this time Paramount (CBS). These mergers provide absolutely no real benefit to the broader world; they exist exclusively so the fail upward brunchlords in charge can nab giant tax breaks and put savvy dealmaker" on their resumes.
But they also showcase how the executives in charge are completely out of original ideas.
That said, the New York Times coverage of this latest wrinkle is... not good.
Outside of the massive debt load, the paper doesn't seem to think it's important to inform readers about the endless, pointless, and clearly harmful chaos from the company's last two shitty mergers. The 50,000+ layoffs from the last two deals aren't even mentioned. Neither is the endless frustration among creatives who lost their livelihoods or watched their projects get crushed underfoot for no coherent reason.
The Times also apparently believes that there's ample business logic" in the deal, because they claim it will provide Warner Brothers Discovery HBO Max Paramount CBS Plus with greater leverage in negotiations with cable TV companies:
There is ample business logic in a tie-up of Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount. Paramount's bundle of TV networks, which include MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, could give Warner Bros. Discovery greater leverage in negotiations with cable distributors like Comcast and Charter."
The problem with the NYT's claim is that traditional cable TV is facing what could be its final death knell. We just got done noting how traditional cable TV networks (many of the ones the Times lists above as important assets) have effectively turned into mindless rerun-airing zombies, and most current cable TV channels likely won't even exist in a few years.
At the same time, most of the worst executives from cable TV have simply jumped over to the streaming sector, where they're busy demonstrating they've learned nothing from decades of history and mistakes. They're absolutely dead set on making streaming every bit as shitty as cable TV via worse overall product, higher prices, and endless, often bizarre efforts to nickel-and-dime increasingly-annoyed customers.
Gone is the originality of HBO, replaced with a growing mountain of reality TV programs about dumb people having sex on islands. Accompanied by a huge increase in weird and annoying service restrictions and higher prices. That's going to drive users not just to free alternatives like YouTube or TikTok, but back to piracy after a decade of inroads with U.S. consumers.
Again, these media mergers are utterly pointless, harmful constructs that actively undermine the brand and long-term health of these companies. And, as the NYT demonstrates, the very real human harms of this pointless consolidation are simply edited out of the frame like one of Stalin's political enemies, ensuring nobody learns anything as we repeat the process in idiotic perpetuity.