They Have the Warner Bros. Deal, Now What Will Paramount Do with It?

With the Paramount-Warner Bros deal all but done, the question now is what a Warner Bros. under Paramount leadership deal will mean. That’s the question Blake & Wang P.A. see entertainment attorney Los Angeles, Brandon Blake is here to answer today.

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Brandon Blake

Lofty Promises

We’ve seen promises of 30 movie releases a year, and a merger ahead for HBO Max and Paramount+. Add to that a promise to keep the linear cable channels pumping, and $6B in savings to come, without major labor cuts. Then, add committed theatrical windows, and wrap it all up in a promise to revitalize the Warner Bros business. Oh yes, Warner Bros will also be remaining independent, for the most part.

That’s certainly pretty much a tick-for-tick list of what the industry wanted to hear about Warner Bros. future. How realistic it is, however, is another question.

The Studio That Can’t Find (the Right) Owner

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Warner Bros has done fantastically at the box office in recent years. But it’s still become known at least as much for its many changes of ownership. Neither Discovery nor AT&T could make it work.

And Paramount will be going into this deal with $79B of their own debt, with only $6B in cost-saving accounted for. Whether they can really shape the needed savings to make all this work without impacting labor or production, as they claim, we will have to wait and see.

It would also be unprecedented. Especially given how many of Warner Bros. assets, which Paramount will be taking over in full, duplicate their own. Think 2 production studios, 2 news networks, 2 marketing departments, 2 major SVOD platforms. It’s a long list. One that makes these promises seem unlikely at best.

Is this a sign of real vision from Paramount? Or just some wishful thinking? We shall have to see what comes as reality sets in.

Pay TV Bundles Grow, For the First Time in Years

It’s looking a little like 2017 again, at least for the Pay-TV world. With bundles showing their first growth in 8 years, there may be a little room to celebrate. And entertainment lawyer at Blake & Wang P.A., Brandon Blake, has the news to share.

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First Uptick Since 2017

It was a modest increase, certainly. 303,000 new subscribers, over cable, satellite, and streaming packages. While the decline rate was 5.8% still, that’s the fifth quarter we’ve seen it tighten. Notably, the Moffett Nathanson data behind it doesn’t size the total market. But that’s believed to be in the 65M to 70M range. It may not be the king of the market hill anymore, but that is still weighty. More importantly, it may suggest what we’ve suspected all along: Pay-TV isn’t dead, its influence has just shrunk.

Intriguing Implications

With most cable providers showing at least a little improvement in this decline, and a wider move to consolidation and streamlining, we might be looking at (close to) the bottom for Pay-TV. In fact, the bottom may have passed already.

What’s changed?

Pay-TV got the wakeup it needed to start offering more, instead of cruising on what worked in the 90s and 00s. We’ve seen many streaming/cable bundles pop up this year, alongside that consolidation. Interestingly, YouTube TV, which has never been a true cable model, saw steady and in-line, but above all average, new subscriber rates. The slowdown in exits came from traditional broadcasting.

It turns out Pay-TV isn’t dead. It needed a new image and more interest for today’s viewers. It also shows streaming and older models still play nicely together. Pretty similar, in fact, to how theatrical releases have come to support streaming, not fall to it. It seems the Hollywood world does have space for different models and approaches, after all.

Lionsgate Enters Digital Movies with New Launch

After parting ways with Starz and, by default, their largest streaming platform, Lionsgate is back, with a new digital movie network on offer. You could review entertainment lawyer at Blake & Wang P.A., Brandon Blake, fills us in on the details below
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Brandon Blake

DirecTV Debut

The new all-movie digital network will be used to give its extensive 20,000+ title library some extra (and lucrative) airtime. To be called MovieSphere Gold, it will see its debut on DirecTV, Sling Freestream, Friendly, and DishTV, with several other hosts lined up. To no one’s surprise, given the shifts in the streaming environment, it will be an ad-supported subscription service.

While there are plenty of movies on offer across the varied modern streaming sources, this will be the first dedicated solely to movie titles. Plus, of course, the fact that many of Lionsgate’s catalogue are not currently available through other streamers.

An Answer to Broadcasting?

Interestingly, with the recent spin-off of Starz and its linear assets, it seems that Lionsgate Studios is looking to replicate the TV broadcast model that worked so well for them, with a modern streaming twist to reinvent it. It’s not a bad bet, with digital broadcasting in this vein showing steady growth and even a little expansion. As the CEO noted, there are now 8 “diginets” using a similar setup among the Top 50 entertainment networks.

With the Lionsgate reputation and catalog to back it, MovieSphere Gold is an interesting exercise in reinventing old strategies. While they have no plans at present to move fully into a streaming platform framework, despite some solid TV assets under their belt as well, the remaining question is now how much subscriber uptake they will receive, as North American viewers become ever top-heavier on subscriptions. Will Lionsgate’s pull be enough to make it a success? Let’s hope to see it thrive.