Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

This has nothing to do with the Netflix bid.

Warner bros is being divided into the cable TV stations + discover channel stations and the movie studio and the backlog is separate.

Netflix wants the movie studio + tv back catalog

The article bullet point referencing WB Discovery could mislead some into thinking that this takeover is only for the Discovery portion, but that's not the case. $30 would not be for Discovery only (as Netflix's bid is $27.75), it's for the whole kit and caboodle. Yes there are two entities, but/and Paramount wants it all, and the takeover intent is for both.

Netflix also wants HBO / HBO Max. They're just leaving the Discovery stuff.

the split is hbo+streaming platform on one side and pretty much everything else on the other (discovery, cablechannels, cnn)

Because WB owns what is left of Newline, that would include LotR and The Hobbit.

That's conventionally called "studios+streaming" because the Warner Bros studio/brand is one of WBD's crown jewels. The way you've written it, someone could infer everything but HBO Max was going into "other." That's incorrect.

"What's left"?

New Line has been part of Warner since they merged with TBS in the mid 90s.

I've heard that what Kushner wants is CNN. If they could make CBS+CNN lean conservative like Fox, they pull off a potential to swing the country via news media.

That's a shitty gamble when online media is where it is at now a days. These big media networks are dinosaurs hanging on by a thread.

That’s not correct. Paramount wants everything (including the parts Netflix wants). Netflix wants just tv and movie studio. So the paramount hostile bid would be for the part Netflix wants and the part they don’t.

It might be. But if you're doing a short-term political power play (rather than a business investment), it could be a good tactical spend. And it might be a smart business investment if the political power play works in such way that you can politically bend the business environment in your favor.

No, Newline was its own division of WB, but during the financial bubble bursting, and shortly after Golden Compass lost $100M they gutted it and drastically reduced their scope of operations. It's still technically its own division but now it's more of a sock puppet.

The Hobbit for instance is a WB production, not Newline.

Apparently sometime shortly before they got the axe they paid Susanna Clarke a 7 figure sum to option Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I don't know a whole lot about options but 7 figures sounds like about 8-16x what people usually do especially for a 3 year old book by an unknown author. IIRC, that's more than Andy Weir got for The Martian. And more than Lev Grossman is worth today, and he got five seasons out of three books.

That option expired unused and BBC One and Cuba Pictures made it into a very good miniseries. Does feel a bit like a pattern of financial exuberence.

2028 is closer than you think. Dinosaur media still connect with dinosaur-voting audiences.

Online media where they have x and Facebook already?

The people who vote are the people also glued to 24hr news.

Plus, they already own all of the online media. The important bits, anyway.

The BBC Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell miniseries is excellent. One of those times (others might include the original LOTR films and early Game of Thrones) where a genre adaptation wildly exceeded my expectations.

And a cheap spend if you can scrounge the money in some roundabout way from Uncle Sam.

Yeah I'm pretty glad Newline biffed that one since we got this instead.

Also Clarke has a chronic illness, which is preventing her from trying for another book of that caliber. That mountain of cash is probably keeping her very comfortable.

I think that's over-simplifying it. Some YouTube personality (or whatever we want to call 'online media' that isn't just CNN's website) isn't going to be getting a Whitehouse press pass anytime soon.

Oh, they absolutely are. As Leavitt promised at her first briefing, it’s been opened to: "independent journalists, podcasters, social media influencers, and content creators."

Yes, all of them right-wing chuds.

A lot of YouTube political influencers have more viewers than CNN.

You haven’t read about what’s going on at the Pentagon wanted the press to sign a release saying only approved content could be published? It was so onerous that even Fox News refused to sign. Now the press Corp is basically a bunch of right wing influencers.

https://www.npr.org/2025/12/03/nx-s1-5630076/the-press-corps...

Just in case you think this is just another liberal hit piece, let me repeat that Fox News refused to sign the agreement.

I'm grateful we got Piranesi, which is one of my favorite books of the last few years. The audiobook is splendid.

And none of this is serious money to the Saudis and MAGA billionaires. If controlling this media ekes out a couple of percent in the midterms, it’s money well spent. A few tens of billions against consolidating power and bigger grifts? High ROI investment.

There is a My Pillow network, and their person is in the Pentagon press pool.

https://lindelltv.com/lindelltv-press-corps/