David Zaslav, compared the company’s and its potential buyers to the parable of The Blind Men and the Elephant.
“We have three or four aggressive bidders. They each are seeing a different elephant because of where they come from and why this asset would be important to them in their future and the future of their companies,” he told CNBC today. “Netflix guys just see it as a great way to have the best library and the best production studio in movies and television … So, you know, I’m sure they’re studying the heck out of it.”
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(In the parable, six blind men each touch a different part of an elephant and come to a different conclusion about what it is.)
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Paramount, which was acquired by David Ellison’s Skydance in August. That transaction was backed in large part by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, one of the richest people in the world, who would also be a major funder of a WBD deal. Netflix and Comcast hired investment banks to explore an offer for the studio and streaming businesses. Amazon-MGM is said to be kicking the tires. Zaslav has noted interest from multiple parties for all or parts of the company and said there’s “an active process underway.” The only formal offers reported so far by Deadline and others have been from Paramount.
Malone believes a Netflix deal “would be much less disruptive to Hollywood. You’d have essentially more activity than less.” Whereas, if “you put it together with another studio. You’re going to try and find synergies. You’re going to have perhaps compression of activity.”
Regulatory outcomes “are very hard to handicap because there is a political element in it. There’s also, you know, different ways of looking at concentration and the public interest. You also have a global regulatory regime, not just domestic. So, while one approach might work domestically, it might not work internationally,” Malone told the network.
Warner Bros. Discovery, burdened by a massive debt load from the Discovery-WarnerMedia merger and a sharp decline in linear television, is also pursuing a previously announced plan to split its business into two companies – streaming and studios, and global linear networks.
“My view was that David and his team did a wonderful job of getting the company organized so that it could split,” Malone said. “And I was certainly hopeful that that split would take place without interference. The offers from Paramount really were perhaps completely unexpected, but really kind of interrupted what I thought was a routine process of splitting this company, fixing the balance sheet and taking time to figure out what the best strategic moves were post that split. It would also separate, let’s say, the burr under the saddle, of CNN, perhaps from the studio.”
Malone has continually thrown shade on CNN and what he calls a liberal bias in recent media appearances around his new book, prompting pushback from the news network.
