COMMENTARY

Another Big TV/Media Merger -- Even Bigger Than Warner Bros. Discovery? Why Not?

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 10 hours ago

Could there be another even bigger media merger than the recently completed WarnerMedia and Discovery?

How about this wrinkle: Another media company now eyeing the new Warner Bros. Discovery?

Some analysts are mulling whether Comcast Corp. might just consider buying that company. (That's right -- raise your eyebrows).

A report suggests the impetus here is that WBD’s stock price is so low, it could be an acquisition target.

All this might have some Federal regulators asking what is really going on in this business -- perhaps looking to slow down monopolistic tendencies by some companies. But wait.. Is this really about big media?

Not as much. The dominant players in media revenues are other companies -- Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon.

Big legacy TV and movie-based media has seemingly been on the ropes due to soaring digital and streaming media companies for a while.

For many, it is logical that three of the biggest companies -- Comcast, WarnerMedia, and Discovery, or perhaps other combinations -- need to combine to stay with still rapidly growing digital media.

For Comcast, the issues also relate to its current streaming efforts, with its Peacock streaming brand.

According to some observers, Peacock seems to be way at the back of the pack -- perhaps behind Disney+, HBO Max, and Paramount+  --when looking at different industry measures, including that of Nielsen viewing.

Comcast's Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts has already suggested the company would like to buy Hulu, which is currently controlled by Walt Disney. Disney, however, is not in any way ready to part with the veteran streaming on-demand and pay TV service.

Some of this market speculation might be coming from David Zaslav, president and chief executive officer of Warner Bros. Discover, who has had a long-time focus on running a lean TV network group operation and minimizing production expenditures.

All this has magnified the situation at Warner Bros. Discovery due to its announced cutbacks -- and much of it has been expected.

Still, unlike previous owner AT&T, Discovery executives are more TV-movie savvy.

Zaslav is a veteran legacy TV and media company executive. Before coming to Discovery Inc, he was a business-side NBCUniversal senior-level executive. So he is familiar with the need for big-spending movies and TV shows.

No matter. Much of this could be steering Warner Bros. Discovery into a deeper financial situation, especially considering that a recessionary economy seems more likely now, and could last for a significant amount of time.

Media stock prices, advertising revenues, and everything else -- including consumer entertainment purchasing -- would no doubt take a big hit.

So misery will love company.