Cordkillers 361 - Work Out Your WarnerCore
Warner and Discovery to merge, there's more Enola Holmes on the way, and Roku says the Q-word. All this and more on Cordkillers!
This week on It's Spoilerin' Time: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Jupiter's Legacy (102), Hannibal (211)
Next week: Jupiter's Legacy (103-104), Hannibal (212), Marvel's M.O.D.O.K. (101-103)
CordKillers: 361 - Work Out Your WarnerCore
Recorded: May 17 2021
Guest: Hammond Chamberlin
Intro Video
Sweet Tooth
Primary Target
AT&T Agrees to Merge Media Business With Discovery
AT&T confirms deal to combine its WarnerMedia subsidiary with Discovery Inc in ‘pure play’ $43B deal
How Discovery and WarnerMedia Merger Went Down
David Zaslav And John Stankey Outline Plans For Merging Discovery And WarnerMedia, Addressing Future Of Jason Kilar, CNN, Streaming
WarnerMedia CEO reportedly negotiating departure after being left out of AT&T–Discovery deal
- The shakeout has begun. As we expected the streaming market will only hold so many competitors, and one fo the biggest signs of consolidation broke Monday.
- AT&T and Discovery have reached an agreement to combine their media divisions into a joint venture to be 71% owned by AT&T and 29% by Discovery.
- They have not named the new business but the CEO will be Discovery's current CEO David Zaslav. For now they're saying Warner Media CEO Jason Kilar "remain CEO" of that division of the new company but expect all of that to change as Zaslav has "a lot of decisions to make on personnel,” and the New York Times's sources say Kilar is assembling a legal team to negotiate his departure. Zaslav says strong relationships with the creative community will be a top priority, something that has been strained under Kilar.
- The new company will encompass Warner Media's movie studio, television studios and networks along with Discovery's networks including the Scripps networks acquired in 2018. Discovery brings in a lot of unscripted content, international distribution and international sports rights. Zaslav says the combined entity spends $20 billion a year on content.
- The new service will likely launch bundles of at least Discovery+ and HBO Max. Whatever they do Zaslav said, “In terms of bundling...we’re going to do it differently.”
- One of the principal motivations behind the move is to reduce debt on AT&T. AT&T will get $43 billion in cash and WarnerMedia will retain some of its own debt, taking it off AT&T's books. AT&T believes this transaction will help it reach its debt-reduction targets a year earlier.
- The deal is not expected to close until mid-2022.
How to Watch
Disney Plus Hits 103.6 Million Subscribers as Rapid Growth Slows, ESPN Plus Perks Up
Disney cuts the theater-exclusive window in half for 'Free Guy,' 'Shang-Chi'
- Disney reported that its streaming service, Disney+ added 8.7 million subscribers in Q1, reaching 103.6 million subscribers worldwide. That fell just short of expecations which were 109.3 million subscribers. By comparison, Netflix has around 208 million subscribers worldwide but only added 4 million in Q1.
- A reminder, Disney raised the price of its package one dollar a month to $7.99, on March 26th.
- Disney CEO Bob Chapek said that Disney Plus is still on track to reach the goal of 230 million to 260 million subscribers by the end of 2024.
- Disney's other two streaming services did well on their own.
- Hulu subscribers increased 30%, to 41.6 million overall.
- And ESPN Plus customers increased 75% year over year, to 13.8 million. Disney is making more deals that include the rights to stream content to ESPN+. Disney just signed new deals with Major League Baseball and La Liga soccer.
- Chapek also announced that Disney movies will have a theater-exclusive of 45 days for Free Guy and Shang-Chi, saying "Flexibility is a key component of our distribution strategy."
Newseek says Ampere Analysis estimates Apple TV PLus now has more than 40 million subscribers up 6 million in the last year.
What to Watch
‘Army Of The Dead’ Cinemark Booking Points To More Theatrical Runs For Some “High-Profile” Films From Netflix & Other Streamers, CEO Mark Zoradi Says
- During a panel at MoffettNathanson Media & Communications Summit, Cinemark CEO Mark Zoaradi said the theatrical run of Army fo the Dead happened after some tests in select markets of Netflix Movies like Christmas Chronicles 2. Yes that test was successful enough that Cinemark wanted more and believes there will be more in the future. Referring to Martin Scorsese's The Irishman, Zoradi said “If that were today, we would find a way to come to an agreement.”
‘Friends’ Reunion Special at HBO Max to Premiere in May, Drops First Teaser
- The Friends Reunion special will run on HBO Max May 27th, one year after the launch of HBO Max. It will feature the original cast reminiscing on the sound stage where the show was shot along with multiple guest stars.
Roku Set to Release 30 Quibi Shows for Free
- Roku will release a collection of 30 of the shows it acquired from Quibi on its Roku Channel starting May 20th. Among them are Kevin Hart's Die Heart, Reno 911! And Dummy.
Rotten Tomatoes Is Launching a Linear Streaming Channel
Of course we should disclose that Tom's wife is director of video production at Rotten Tomatoes which just launched a 24/7 streaming channel called Rotten Tomatoes on the Roku channel.
‘The Righteous Gemstones’ Adds Jason Schwartzman, Eric Roberts, Eric Andre as Recurring Cast
- Jason Schawarzman, Eric Roberts and Eric Andre have been added to the cast of The Righteous Gemstones as recurring characters in season 2. That season is in production for 9 episodes.
Amazon detective show 'Bosch' returns for its final season on June 25th
- Amazon's Bosch will launch its seventh and final season June 25th. Bosch was one of the earliest hits on Amazon Prime Video. An IMDB TV series spinoff is in the works.
Amazon will stream WNBA games in 2021 as part of a multi-year deal
- Amazon signed a multi-year deal to obtain global streaming rights for WNBA games on Prime Video. Amazon will stream 16 regular season WNBA games as well as the inaugural Commissioner's Cup championship game.
Dwayne Johnson's 'Jungle Cruise' will premiere in theaters and on Disney Plus Premier access July 30.
Netflix announced it will make Enola Holmes 2
Netflix gives you more Bridgerton with Queen Charlotte prequel spinoff
‘Black-ish’ Renewed For Eighth & Final Season On ABC
La Casa de Papel, aka ‘Money Heist’ finished shooting its 5th and final season.
Peacock will make the movie ‘Psych 3: This Is Gus’
Netflix is developing an 'Ultraman' Animated Movie With All-New Story
Eyes On
Hammond: The Nevers
Brian: Life in Color
Tom: Youn's Kitchen
On the Lookout: Why Are You Like This
Front Lines
MTV Movie and TV Awards Full Winners List: ‘To All the Boys’ and ‘WandaVision’ Take Top Honors
- The fan-voted MTV Movie and TV awards returned Sunday and streaming dominated. Disney Plus's WandaVision won best show, best villain, best performance and best fight. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier won best duo and best hero.
- Netflix's To All the Boys: Always and Forever won Best movie and Chadwick Boseman won for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. The Haunting of Bly Manor took home best frightened performance and Bridgerton got a breakthrough performance award.
- Amazon's Coming2 America got the best comedic performance for Leslie Jones.
The CW Expands to Saturdays This Fall, Making It a Seven-Night Network for the First Time
- The broadcast network, the CW, aimed at a younger demo, will go to seven day. Week broadcast schedule for the first time by adding a two-hour Saturday night block starting October 2nd with a special airing of the "iHeart radio Music Festival."
Fubo TV Shares Rise On Better-Than-Expected Q1 Results, Subscriber Growth
- Fubo TV lost less money than Wall Street expected and added 43,000 subscribers last quarter putting it up 303,000 year over year, up 105%. This despite the sports-oriented streaming offering having no Turner networks during NCAA's March madness.
Sling TV now supports AirPlay for watching on the big screen
- SlingTV has updated its iOS app to support AirPlay. Sling has an Apple TV app but as more devices, especially TVs, support AirPlay it means you can use Sling from an iPhone or iPad to cast streaming.
Legacy Media Firms Have the Tools to Transition to the Streaming Era, Says Analyst
- The conventional wisdom has been that to compete with Amazon and Netflix in streaming, you need to get big, hence Disney buying Fox assets, Viacom and CBS merging and AT&T merging Warner into Discovery. But Ampere Analysis issued a report saying legacy media operators only need to grow to 70-80% the size of Netflix to succeed. That's because it already owns a huge pile of assets from back catalogs to Ip for new shows based on loved franchises. Ampere estimates that 203 million subscribers to Peacock would replace its entire theatrical, content sales and Pay TV channel business. ViacomCBS could do the same with 184 million subscribers to Paramount Plus.
Fox is making a blockchain animated series with Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon to sell you NFTs
- Fox announced a blockchain-related marketplace launching with Dan Harmon's Krapopolis animated series. Blockchain Creative Labs will sell characters and artwork as non-fungible tokens or NFTs, along with NFTs that offer exclusive social experiences. Krapopolis comes to Fox this autumn.
Dispatches from the Front
Hey Tom, Brian and Friends
Watching a movie trailer I noticed the classic ""Coming only to theatres"" statement.
In the age of streaming, does anybody actually believe that the movie will only play in theatres?
Since the hay day of the VCR and home movie rental, did any movie ever appear only in theatres?
Do they think they are fooling anybody into going to see the movie in the theatre just in case it doesn't come out to rent or purchase later?
Your friend, old boss and soon to be boss again (I promise)
- Finley