Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery are the incumbents. Both want to maintain carriage relationships with the NBA, though both companies have also stressed they will be financially disciplined. The league is also looking for a robust streaming option. This is where Apple would fit in. (For what it’s worth, a second executive said he didn’t think Apple would even make a bid for NBA rights and thought NBCUniversal’s Peacock might end up with them.)
Candle Media is co-run by two former Disney executives, Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs. This person’s guess is Mayer will return to Disney in a senior operating role to position himself as Iger’s top successor candidate while Staggs would leave the company.
A second person threw out a different name to keep an eye on: Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts. This may seem out of left field, but here’s some inside baseball for you — the same executive to mention Wilson correctly predicted Iger would return as Disney CEO in 2022. Then last year, the person said Chris Licht wouldn’t last the year as CNN’s CEO and McCarthy would depart as Disney’s CFO. Three for three! So, maybe pay attention.
“In our view, Disney’s board has failed to fulfill its essential responsibilities – overseeing the development of an effective strategy, planning for orderly succession, aligning executive pay with performance, and ensuring accountability for operational execution,” Peltz said in the statement.
This executive predicted Peltz and Rasulo will win their campaign and both join the board. A second person guessed only Rasulo will get a spot — perhaps via a settlement before a vote.
This executive predicted “fool me five times, shame on me.” Disney has many strategic problems that don’t have easy answers, such as figuring out how ESPN’s business fits in a direct-to-consumer world and how to wind down its legacy TV cable networks. Those problems demand a leader with a steady hand who understands the industry. Is there a better leader of Disney than Bob Iger? The Disney board has decided, over and over again, that there is not. Why would this time be any different?
One executive targeted NBCUniversal as the most likely acquirer of Warner Bros. Discovery. This executive predicted Comcast CEO Brian Roberts would spin off NBCUniversal so that the new company would trade separately. But, Comcast (and Roberts) would keep a controlling stake of the ownership of the new entity.
A second executive suggested a more expansive scenario. Comcast will keep its theme parks business but sell the rest of the company in exchange for WBD common shares. Comcast will get a premium for the remainder of NBCUniversal in exchange for Roberts giving up his voting shares. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav runs the combined company, with NBCUniversal film chief Donna Langley staying on to run an expanded studio.
In honor of the 12 days of Christmas, I asked 12 past and current executives at the world’s biggest media and entertainment companies for one industry-shaking prediction for 2024. And then I asked one more because this is the holiday season, and I was feeling generous. A baker’s dozen! Actually, I asked a few more, but some overlapped.
Some weren’t as good. The media industry didn’t bounce back from recession as well as one executive hoped. Netflix didn’t merge with another company. Apple didn’t ban TikTok from its app store.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and Paramount CEO Bob Bakish met Tuesday to discuss the contours of a possible deal, said the sources, who declined to be named since the talks are private. The discussions are preliminary, and a deal may not materialize.
The news comes as speculation about Paramount’s future heats up. Controlling shareholder Shari Redstone is reportedly eager to make a deal. Redstone controls Paramount through her company National Amusements. Recently, Redstone held talks with David Ellison’sSkydance, which is backed by Gerry Cardinale’s investment firm RedBird, according to people familiar with the matter.
Paramount, whose assets include its namesake movie studio as well as broadcast network CBS, is carrying a hefty debt load, as well.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. Discovery, the result of a merger between Warner Media and Discovery, has been slashing costs and attacking its debt levels under Zaslav. The company has since said its streaming business has become profitable while other streamers, outside of leader Netflix, try to reverse losses.
Last month, Zaslav and Liberty Media’s John Malone, a Warner Bros. Discovery shareholder and board member, appeared to indicate that the company was preparing to become a buyer within the next year or two. The broader media industry is widely considered ripe for consolidation. Media executives are worried, however, that President Joe Biden’s administration could be hostile to a big media merger.
Warner Bros. Discovery is approaching the two-year anniversary of its 2022 merger. That’s a key benchmark for Reverse Morris Trust tax reasons. It means that Warner Bros. Discovery can do another significant deal two years after the close of the previous merger.
Axios previously reported the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery talks. Warner Bros. Discovery’s stock fell more than 5% Wednesday after the news broke, while Paramount shares bounced a little off their lows.
“During these Russophobic outbursts, the election campaign will definitely be the main target,” Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian television channel Rossiya-24.
“They are struggling to comprehend the level of consolidation in society, the level of public support for the president even before the start of the election campaign,” Peskov told the network, according to comments published by Tass news agency.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced last Friday that he would run for reelection as he met Russian soldiers who had fought against Ukraine. In the apparently choreographed moment on Russian television, Putin was asked by one of the war veterans to run for president again.
Putin responded by saying, “I will not hide that I have had different thoughts at different times but it is now time to make a decision,” according to comments reported by Reuters. “I understand that there is no other way.”
Peskov told Rossiya-24 that the Kremlin had received a huge number of messages of support for the president ahead of his public phone-in on Thursday in which the president answers (highly curated) questions from the public on a variety of issues ranging from potholes to pensions.
“There [in the West] it is impossible to understand this,” Peskov said, before claiming the election campaign would be the target of unspecified “attacks.”
“Moreover, the hybrid war against us is still ongoing. In these conditions, the election campaign merely cannot but be a target for attacks. On the other hand, we have acquired some immunity against such attacks. I am sure this immunity will work,” Peskov added, without providing further detail.
Previous events have lasted over four hours, with Putin answering up to 70 questions from the public and press. This year’s combined event begins at 9:00 a.m. London time.
The events take place against a backdrop of Putin’s decision, made last Friday, to run for office again in the March 2024 election. With little to no “non-systemic” opposition in Russia, he is highly likely to win the vote, keeping him in office until 2030.
The two-in-one press conference and “Direct Line” format was also used in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic gripped Russia and the rest of the world. The last combined event lasted almost four and a half fours, and the head of the state gave answers to 50 questions asked by journalists and citizens, Tass news agency noted Thursday.
This time, correspondents from federal and regional media outlets, as well as foreign journalists accredited in Russia, will be present in the hall, the state-run news agency noted.
The discussion will be moderated by Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, Channel One TV host Ekaterina Berezovskaya and Rossiya-1 journalist Pavel Zarubin.
