Warner Bros. Discovery's strategic shift and cancellation of HBO Max original film 'Batgirl' brings the curtain down on Hollywood's spending spree to build up direct-to-consumer platforms.
’s decision to scrap the completed DC Comics film that was bound for HBO Max marks the boldest example of Old Media economic rigor being applied to contemporary content spending., CEO of the newly reconfigured media conglomerate, didn’t even mask his bewilderment at the decision-making process and optimistic profit projections made by the previous WarnerMedia regime. Zaslav and other executives spoke Aug.
surprised many of those same Wall Street analysts by announcing plans to launch the streaming platforms that became Disney+ and ESPN+.“I would characterize this as an extremely important, very, very significant strategic shift for us,” Iger said at the time.Century Fox, AT&T went after what was then Time Warner and Paramount Global chair Shari Redstone redoubled her efforts to reunite Viacom and CBS under one roof in a deal completed in December 2019.
Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish has been a proponent of taking a diversified approach to streaming. He has championed the company’s investment in free ad-supported TV channels on its wholly owned Pluto TV platform, which is built on a revenue-share model with outside content providers, mixed with the premium subscription content offered by Paramount+ and the standalone Showtime streaming app.“We believe our streaming business can get to TV Media-like margins over time,” Bakish told.
WB Discovery is mulling a FAST channel iteration of HBO Max and Discovery+ to serve as a kind of barker service to lure paying subscribers. The exploding popularity of FAST channels has industry veterans clucking that consumers now have the means to recreate the traditional cable bundle but on economic terms that are far worse for content providers.
All of this volatility, coupled with the gathering macroeconomic headwinds, explain why media stocks have been pummeled so far this year. Once Netflix’s aura of invincibility came down with its Q1 surprise of subscriber losses ahead, the gospel of spend-at-all-cost to build platforms and gain market share has lost some of its hold on CEOs and CFOs.The health of the subscription streaming market will get an important temperature check next week when Disney reports its fiscal Q3 earnings on Aug.
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