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The Town with Matthew Belloni

Warner's M&A Options and an NBA Rights Scoop

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3847 Ratings

🗓️ 19 July 2024

⏱️ 37 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Matt is joined by Jessica Reif Ehrlich, a senior media and entertainment analyst at BofA Securities, to discuss the floundering Warner Bros. Discovery and propose several drastic changes she believes are necessary to save the company (02:35). Then, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons joins the show with a new angle on the looming NBA rights deal involving Amazon and Warner Bros. Discovery (22:14). Finally, Matt makes an opening weekend box office prediction for ‘Twisters’ (32:15). For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, ‘What I’m Hearing ...,’ click this link: puck.news/thetown Email us your thoughts! [email protected] Host: Matt Belloni Guests: Jessica Reif Ehrlich and Bill Simmons Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Theme Song: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is Danny Hyfitz here to remind you that it's never too early to start thinking about football.

0:04.7

Join me with Danny Kelly and Craig Coralbeck on the Ringer Fantasy Football Show all offseason.

0:09.4

As we dive into the biggest news and topics are in the 2024 NFL season, also we probably get into really stupid arguments too.

0:15.4

That's the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on Spotify.

0:20.2

It is Friday, July 19th.

0:22.8

It's been more than two years now since Warner Media and Discovery Communications were

0:27.2

combined under the leadership of David Zazloff.

0:30.5

He's basically our Kim Kardashian on the town.

0:32.6

We talk about him so much.

0:34.2

Zazlov and his patron, John Malone, the big investor and the Warner Brothers Discovery

0:38.3

shareholder, they premised this merger on using the billions of dollars from the combined

0:43.7

linear television assets like HBO, TBS, CNN, and the HGTV and Discovery Channel,

0:49.9

which are profitable but shrinking fast. They wanted to use those to power their investments

0:55.1

in streaming, which ultimately led to max, the service that has about 100 million subscribers worldwide.

1:01.7

It's been a rough road, though, mostly because the TV advertising market has not delivered

1:06.4

what Zaslov thought it would. They've got tons of debt. And those investments in streaming are very

1:11.9

expensive. They've cut a bunch of costs, laid off thousands of employees, they're making fewer

1:16.8

shows and movies, and they're probably about to lose the very lucrative NBA rights.

1:22.3

And despite all those cost cuts, this week there was a very interesting report from the

1:26.4

analyst at Bank of America

1:27.5

Securities, saying in pretty stark terms that Warner Brothers' discovery is, quote, not working

1:33.0

and that something else needs to be done quickly to right the ship, something drastic.

...

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