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Warner Bros Discovery mulls separating streaming and studio from TV business
- IBJ Bureau
- Jul 19, 2024
Warner Bros Discovery, the owner of CNN and HBO, has discussed a plan to split its digital streaming and studio businesses from its legacy TV networks in a bid to boost its flailing stock price, The Financial Times has reported.
The media giant’s shares jumped 6.5 per cent in premarket trading on Thursday. Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav is examining several options for the company, ranging from selling assets to separating its Warner Bros movie studio and Max streaming service into a new company, the FT has added, citing people familiar with the matter.
The report has said that most of the group’s debt of about $39 billion as of March 31 could remain with the pay-TV networks business if Warner Bros Discovery breaks up.
The company has not responded to a Reuters’ request for comment.
Consolidation in the media industry has picked up this year as cable TV loses millions of customers to cord-cutting and the once-dominant companies seeking the scale needed to compete with digital streaming giants such as Netflix.
Paramount Global had agreed to merge with streaming-era upstart Skydance Media earlier in July, marking what some analysts have said was a change of guard from media moguls to tech billionaires as David Ellison will take charge of the company.
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