Commentary

What's Left for Linear TV Businesses? Perhaps Iconic TV Brand Names

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 11 hours ago

What’s left for branded linear TV networks -- beyond their business revenue monetization abilities?

Maybe just their brands' names: CBS, NBC, MTV, Showtime, AMC -- and perhaps even HBO.

HBO is a brand name that was removed from a newly created streaming service in May 2023 by the new Discovery Inc. owners (renamed Warner Bros. Discovery) after it bought WarnerMedia from AT&T. 

The HBO Max streamer, started up in 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, was downsizing into just Max.

For decades, HBO also had a companion service -- the premium cable TV network named "Cinemax." That is partly how its original name was derived. Now into the slimmer Max. 

The move was made to broaden the identity that WBD’s all-encompassing streaming platform might also include any and all program content from all types of networks -- general entertainment, unscripted content, and news channels from TNT, truTV, CNN, HLN, Food Network, Animal Planet, and all the rest.

But now factoring into the likely disappearance of the NBA from TNT (with only a slim chance of a return via a lawsuit with the league), Warner Bros. Discovery might need to find extra value in brands it has seemingly pushed aside.

This comes as reports suggest WBD is considering some small assets sales to boost revenues.

Richard Greenfield, co-founder and media analyst of LightShed Partners, believes that as part of this, the company could be helped -- and perhaps even revived -- by re-boosting the HBO brand name again.

Losing the NBA shouldn’t be the end of the company, according to most analysts. But consider that Paramount Global is in approximately the same position, with its own major TV brand name that continues to top live, linear TV -- CBS.

For years, you could find major legacy TV network-based media companies touting all its networks and channels -- which could be a collective of around two dozen or so national TV cable and broadcast businesses.

This all now seems to be a hindrance -- a drag on one’s overall media presence. Similarly, there has been talk that like WBD, the new Paramount Global owners are also considering some small to medium assets sales. 

So that begs the question -- beyond the usual issues revolving around streaming platforms: What is left in these companies that has any significant, ongoing value?  

It’s in a brand network name -- the name that tens of millions of TV consumers already know.