shied away from<\/a>. HBO Max is \u201cnot everything for everyone in a household,\u201d JB Perrette, WBD\u2019s streaming president and CEO, said this spring.<\/p>\n\u201cWhat people want from us in a world where they\u2019ve got Netflix and Amazon [Prime Video] are those things that differentiate us,\u201d Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content, told The Wall Street Journal in May.<\/p>\n
A \u201cstress test\u201d for more streaming mergers<\/p>\n
Aside from the impact on HBO Max subscribers, WBD\u2019s merger talks have broad implications. A deal would open the door for much more consolidation in the streaming space, something that experts have been anticipating for some years and that addresses the boom of streaming services. Per Clark, discussions of a Paramount-WBD merger are \u201cless about two studios joining forces and more about a stress test for future M&A.\u201d<\/p>\n
If WBD accepts a Paramount bid and that bid clears regulatory hurdles, it would signal that \u201cpremium content under fewer umbrellas is back in play,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n
A Paramount-WBD merger is likely to speed up consolidation among mid-tier players, like NBCUniversal, Lionsgate, and AMC, Alderman said, pointing to these companies\u2019 interest in scaling their streaming businesses and in building differentiated portfolios to counter Netflix and Disney+\u2019s expansive libraries.<\/p>\n
If Paramount and WBD don\u2019t merge, Clark expects to see more \u201cpiecemeal\u201d strategies, such as rights-sharing, joint venture bundles, and streaming-as-a-service models.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If a company acquires any form of HBO, one of its top challenges is expected to be streamlining…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-123403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}