The troubled tenure of David Zaslav continues over at Warner, with tons of negative attention focused on them asWarner Bros. Discoveryhas its Q2 earnings call. One of the most damning revelations from this is that the company has had to devalue some of its major linear networks, including Food Network, Discovery, CNN, HGTV, TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network/Adult Swim, and several more channels. This results in a $9.1 billion “goodwill impairment charge,” which writes off so-called “worthless” intangible assets.
According to Jennifer Maas over atVariety, this “non-cash, pre-tax figure, comes after an asset reevaluation that accounted for the difference between the “fair value” and “book value” of the networks, which have changed due to continued softness in U.S. linear ad market and uncertainty around affiliate and sports rights renewals, including the NBA, two years after the close ofWarnerMedia and Discovery’s merger.”
Warner Bros. Discovery Shutting Down Iconic Streaming Platform in September
Why #DontStreamOnMax
While it has been a consistently popular hashtag, #DontStreamOnNetflix has begun to trend today, with a variety of television fans lamenting how the Warner Bros. Discovery merger and the leadership of Zaslav has affected their favorite programming. People have taken to social media to post and repost the below image:
EvenThe Boysover on Prime Video took a swipe at HBO, Max, and Warner Bros. in general with a parody video:
Last month, asDeadlinereported, “Longtime media analyst Jessica Reif Erlich today begged Warner Bros. Discovery to do something – anything — from selling the company, to selling assets, to finding a streaming joint venture or merger.” Since the Discovery merger, their stock has declined by a whopping 70%. Something’s gotta give.
Some Good News & Zaslav Responds
“At Warner Bros. Discovery, our top priority is our global direct-to-consumer business and we are extremely pleased with the growing momentum we are seeing, as demonstrated by another strong quarter of growth with 3.6 million net adds, fueled by our ongoing international expansion and investment in high quality, diverse content," said Zaslav, who continued:
“In light of industry headwinds, we have and will continue taking bold steps, like reimagining our existing linear partnerships and pursuing new bundling opportunities, with the goal to get Max on the devices of more consumers faster and at a fraction of the acquisition cost, and we are seeing clear evidence that these and other actions we are taking will help drive segment profitability in the second half of the year and into 2025 and beyond.”
Curiously quiet about some other things there, aren’t you, Zas?
