(Welcome to the “Most Important Story of the Week”, my bi-weekly strategy column analyzing the most important (but often not buzziest) news story of the last two weeks. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. Please subscribe.)
The last few issues of this newsletter have circled two topics: September’s streaming viewership and all the Paramount/Skydance/Warner Bros./Discovery merger news.
I’m happy to say on the Streaming Ratings Report front, we’ll be all caught up by early next week, then the SRR will come out on a tight weekly schedule.
Then, after today, I’ll have slayed my PSWbD dragon. It’s such a big story, it demanded multiple issues. With the announcement of a name (just Skydance) and executive team, though, I think we can almost close the book on this story. In terms of topics, it becomes just another studio to cover.
So today, I have one last set of takes on that merger. As I’ve sat with it, reading about who was staying and who was going, a big worry crystallized in my brain, and I gotta get that take out. Plus, I still owe you a host of “ugliness” that didn’t fit in my previous “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” takes.
Let’s dive in!
Most Important Story of the Week – As Paramount Doesn’t Shuffle Deck Chairs, Will They Build or Consolidate?
On social media—I try to avoid most social media platforms, but sometimes I end up checking in—the best joke I saw about the announcement of the new name of Skydance was from fellow reporter Claire Atkinson who pointed out…
Yeah, I laughed out loud at that one. Later, though, I saw another Twitter response (that later got deleted, so I can’t shout the person out) that did give me pause. The person noted that the Titanic film made the better analogy: a super expensive project everyone in the town doubted that went on to conquer the globe. So yeah: on one hand, the image of the Titanic recalls the actual ship and its infamous end, but that clip is from a movie which proved the doubters wrong.
So for all the skepticism of the latest massive media merger, one could wonder which way this one goes. Does it crash like the Titanic or rise to glory like Titanic, the movie?
Either way, this deal is “Titanic”, looking at the massive debt required to close the deal, which is not going well when it comes to borrowing costs for Paramount…
…or borrowing costs for Oracle.
But I’ve started to get worried about another outcome: the sum of this merger will be smaller and weaker and less profitable than its former parts.
In other words, one plus one won’t equal three or two, but an even smaller number.
Skydance paid to take a traditional studio off the board, but they won’t really capture the upside. Let me explain what I mean, but first, let’s look at the series of news that inspired this thought.
Skydance Sets Its Leadership Team
As soon as the Paramount-Skydance-Warner Bros.-Discovery merger closed, the new leadership team announced a new name—Skydance, which I’ll use going forward—and a new executive leadership team.
You’ve probably read through all the executive shuffling, but if you haven’t, here’s a quick, incomplete summary, in rough order of importance:
- Mattel’s CEO Ynon Kreiz—who previously ran Maker Studios—joined as co-CEO with David Ellison.
- HBO/HBO Max’s Casey Bloys will stay and run streaming.
- Former head of streaming for Paramount-Skydance Cindy Holland—who was also at Netflix—will depart.
- The former heads of Warner Bros.—Pam Abdy and Mike De Luca—are out. The film studios will be run by Dana Goldstein and Josh Greenstein.
- George Cheeks of Paramount will run Skydance TV, controlling all the TV production units.
- In comic book news, the DC films will still be run by Peter Gunn and Peter Safran.
- Lastly, the head of CNN, Mark Thompson, will stay in place.
Let’s quickly opine on the particulars before diving into the broad ramifications.
We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out…
- Who I like and dislike in their next gigs…
- Why I think this consolidation will likely leave Skydance worse off…
- The math behind which mergers succeed and which don’t…
- A lot more ugliness in this merger…
- And a whole lot more…
…please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support.
