Warner/Discovery

[BluBonnet]

Originally Posted by mwynn

Hmm, surprising with the company split.

What would normally happen with a company split?

[mwynn]

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

What would normally happen with a company split?

With mergers there are generally duplicate jobs. A split should create more jobs. This looks to be all from the movie group. It also says it has been planned since the beginning of the year.

Adding on to this. If the layoffs were planned from the beginning of the year, could their expectations have been low for this years releases. So they were ready to cut people just in case.

[cgpublic]

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

Why are people seemingly fleeing from Warner Discovery?

Once people start asking questions like this...

Originally Posted by mwynn

Is Warner Doomed?

...and divesting, you know how it's gonna to end, even if...

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

This looks like a job for Superman!

...he's looking good at the box office, but even Superman can't beat Zaslav in a race to the bottom.

Originally Posted by Jay Mammoth

Just to break up the trolls doom postings...

...it's great for Gunn, and good tidings for DC, but it's not enough.

One has to wonder where this all ends for Warner Bros. I guess you can say "We're in the endgame, now." 10% is the appetizer.

The most respected movie studio in Hollywood, AT&T and Discovery just had to set the Greed dial to 11 and flush the company down the toilet, all while conducting a masterclass in how to enrich oneself at the expense of others.

[Jay Mammoth]

[BluBonnet]

Originally Posted by cgpublic

One has to wonder where this all ends for Warner Bros. I guess you can say "We're in the endgame, now." 10% is the appetizer.

The most respected movie studio in Hollywood, AT&T and Discovery just had to set the Greed dial to 11 and flush the company down the toilet, all while conducting a masterclass in how to enrich oneself at the expense of others.

The downward spiral didn’t start with AT&T, it goes all the way back to the AOL days.

[mwynn]

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

The downward spiral didn’t start with AT&T, it goes all the way back to the AOL days.

Paramount had a hand in this as they tried to snap Time Inc, while they were trying to buy Warner. Which forced Time to acquire Warner with a $14.9 billion cash/stock offer. Paramount responded with a lawsuit filed in Delaware court to break up the merger. Paramount lost and the merger proceeded.

Some of the issues came in the 60's when Jack sold to Seven Arts Productions and they took a major loss on Camelot.
The new owners were kind of sick of Jack also. That is talked about in this book.

https://books.google.com/books?id=SUocAQAAIAAJ

[cgpublic]

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

The downward spiral didn’t start with AT&T, it goes all the way back to the AOL days.

No question that was a bad deal, and agree it set the stage for what was to come, but I don't rank it up there with the AT&T and Discovery debacles.

Originally Posted by mwynn

Some of the issues came in the 60's when Jack sold to Seven Arts Productions and they took a major loss on Camelot.

Also agreed, with Jack forcing everyone else out and trying to hold on after the Golden Age, and then making a bad deal when his time was obviously up.

In business there are the inevitable up's and down's, but the AT&T deal and related attempt to change the culture based on a belief that the biggest brand in Hollywood should prioritize competing with Youtube by streaming Game of Thrones to phones, was shortsighted, and on point, the two ideas are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

You can be the largest and most respected brand in Hollywood, and still stream GoT to phones on the down low.

[BluBonnet]

Originally Posted by cgpublic

No question that was a bad deal, and agree it set the stage for what was to come, but I don't rank it up there with the AT&T and Discovery debacles.

“There’s no winning - there’s only degrees of losing…”

[vertigop1ayer]

There will be some interesting books on this era of WB eventually. A company can only endure this constant instability and distractions for so long.

[BluBonnet]

This should really be infuriating, but it almost seems like it doesn’t even faze anyone anymore.

Coming off a steady stream of smash hits wasn’t enough to stop the layoffs.

[RegressiveScan]

Why did you snip out the author of that tweet in your screen grab?

[BluBonnet]

Originally Posted by RegressiveScan

Why did you snip out the author of that tweet in your screen grab?

If you want to see the original tweet, it’s right here.

I just think it’s the idea that’s important, not who’s saying it.

[Britnasty]

David Zaslav has taken WB and run it into the ground and no one is blinking an eye. The man is inept and his tenure needs to be studied. Making F*ck-up after F*ck-up and still making 20M or more a year is astounding.

[DKLou]

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

This should really be infuriating, but it almost seems like it doesn’t even faze anyone anymore.

Coming off a steady stream of smash hits wasn’t enough to stop the layoffs.

Were the "hits" enough to generate actual profit though? What about everything else that Warner funded but maybe didn’t make money or lost money? You also have to look at how much these films cost to make. We know that the average Hollywood type blockbuster these days somehow costs like $300++ million to actually produce, market, etc.

Hollywood has or is doing a fine job of screwing itself as much as any outside force is. Soulless remakes, strings of bad movies, extreme cost over runs, no desire to take any risks. And on and on. Yes, there have been some solid films especially the last few superhero movies. But they have to keep on the right path & get their shit together.

What does the math say? I’m not defending overpaid CEOs of which there seem to be quite a few of in the world. But a 10% layoff isn’t uncommon in any industry or company regardless of what it looks like on the surface. Dig for the data.

[Mierzwiak]

F1 is not WB's production, they're its distributor only.

Also calling Superman "smash hit" is an exaggeration.

[BluBonnet]

+

[DKLou]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

F1 is not WB's production, they're its distributor only.

Also calling Superman "smash hit" is an exaggeration.

Got it. And yeah, smash hit is being used slightly out of context here. The point is that WB had to control costs and generate a profit for its shareholders. Kind of a common sense 101 thing.

[veritas]

The thing is they have around 37 billion in debt. So they need probably around 2 billion in profits just to service their debts interest payments.

[mwynn]

Originally Posted by Britnasty

David Zaslav has taken WB and run it into the ground and no one is blinking an eye. The man is inept and his tenure needs to be studied. Making F*ck-up after F*ck-up and still making 20M or more a year is astounding.

There are still rumors that Sony wants to buy the movie portion of the company.

They already sold off some of the channels for cheap in Australia. I had read before that most of their profits were in the TV market, which is going to disappear for the most part soon.

[DKLou]

Originally Posted by veritas

The thing is they have around 37 billion in debt. So they need probably around 2 billion in profits just to service their debts interest payments.

Oh - well then, no wonder they are laying people off. I mean, hello???

Thats ugly though. Gee whizzers.