from the 24/7-clown-show dept

We’ve effectively documented how the AOL–>AT&T->Warner Brothers->Discovery sequence of mergers have been amongst among the most harmful and pointless “business deals” ever conceived by modern man. Simply many years of “savvy deal-making” that resulted in an more and more shittier product.

The mergers resulted in bottomless layoffs, the closure of numerous helpful and popular brands and exhibits, and far worse product as incompetent, fail-upward executives shifted the corporate’s focus away from high quality programming towards lowest-common-denominator engagement slop.

After infinite chaos, the businesses are successfully unwinding the unique deal, splitting the media large again into two firms: Warner Bros. and Discovery Global. The really semi-valuable stuff — together with HBO, HBO Max streaming, and their gaming properties shall be a part of a slimmed-down Warner Bros.

The extra problematic albatross across the firm’s neck, its dying cable networks (together with TNT, CNN, HGTV and Animal Planet) shall be spun off into Discovery International. This can, violently overcompensated CEO David Zaslav insists, proceed a legacy of excellence on the media large:

“We’ll proudly proceed the greater than century-long legacy of Warner Bros. by means of our dedication to bringing culture-defining tales, characters and leisure to audiences around the globe,” Zaslav mentioned.”

A part of this proud legacy, you may recall, included sidelining the HBO brand, which Zaslav initially claimed mirrored a savvy evolution within the firm’s considering. Executives believed that the “the HBO title turns off many potential subscribers,” so that they renamed their streaming service “Max” within the perception this may give them a contemporary branding begin.

However the title adjustments have been so quick and frequent they befuddled even the company’s own employees.

Executives like Zaslav are all out of any type of unique concepts, assuming that they had any within the first place. The sort of stuff that really pleases clients (low costs, increased high quality, improved buyer help, higher characteristic units) prices cash and erodes quarterly earnings and the objective of not possible progress.

So as a substitute, these executives have embraced a purely extractive “progress for progress’s sake” mindset by which they pursue purposeless consolidation whose solely operate is to quickly goose inventory valuations, present massive tax cuts, and flimsily justify outsized compensation for fail-upward brunchlord media executives who fancy themselves savvy dealmakers (see the Ellison family and CBS).

And there’s been a whole era of this, if you happen to prolong your view again to the unique, equally disastrous AOL deal again in 2001. When the press covers these pointless offers, they very not often suppose it’s price mentioning the era price of carnage and layoffs this type of consolidation at all times creates; a tone-deafness that itself is a direct results of consolidation and unhealthy administration.

Zaslav has acknowledged repeatedly that he sees Trump 2.0 as an opportunity for more harmful media consolidation, which is able to solely proceed to make the underlying merchandise worse. Wash, rinse, repeat, with completely no person studying something from the expertise due to all method of perverse monetary incentives which have nothing to do with constructing actual worth or making your clients glad.

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