{"id":355945,"date":"2025-12-18T11:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T11:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/355945\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T11:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T11:48:08","slug":"standard-general-co-founder-holds-talks-over-wbd-cable-tv-assets-ft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/355945\/","title":{"rendered":"Standard General Co-Founder Holds Talks Over WBD Cable TV Assets \u2013 FT"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/standard-general\/\" id=\"auto-tag_standard-general\" data-tag=\"standard-general\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Standard General<\/a> hedge fund co-founder <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/soo-kim\/\" id=\"auto-tag_soo-kim\" data-tag=\"soo-kim\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Soo Kim<\/a> has held talks over buying into Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD)\u2019s TV networks, according to the Financial Times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tCiting people briefed on the matter, the article reported that Kim had been approached by \u201cat least one\u201d WBD shareholder about acquiring some or all of the cable TV assets, which include <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/cnn\/\" id=\"auto-tag_cnn\" data-tag=\"cnn\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CNN<\/a> and the T-Nets. The identity of the shareholder was not revealed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tKim leads Standard General, a hedge fund that is the biggest shareholder in gambling and interactive firm Bally\u2019s Corporation and owns MediaCo, a Burbank-based TV and radio business catering for African-Americans and Hispanic Americans. His company also came close to an $8.6B deal for station owner Tegna, but the deal was scrapped after regulatory problems in 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tWe\u2019ve reached out to WBD for comment. Standard General couldn\u2019t be contacted before press time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe news comes as WBD\u2019s future remains up in the air. Overnight, WBD <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2025\/12\/warner-bros-discovery-paramount-netflix-merger-1236650715\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">urged its shareholders to reject<\/a> Paramount Skydance\u2019s hostile $108B offer for all of its assets, and is moving ahead with an $82.7B total enterprise agreement with Netflix \u2013 a deal that does not include the TV networks. WBD President and CEO Davdi Zaslav yesterday <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2025\/12\/netflix-warner-bros-studio-visit-photos-paramount-1236652221\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">took Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters on a tour<\/a> of the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tWhile the studio, streaming service HBO Max and affiliated cable channel HBO are broadly considered the jewels in the WBD crow, the TV networks have been <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2025\/12\/warner-bros-discovery-cable-tv-paramount-netflix-1236642460\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">dubbed \u2013 perhaps unfairly \u2013 \u2018CrapCo\u2019<\/a> in some circles. While they still deliver bundles of cash, they are seeing their value rapidly decreasing as TV advertising drops and cord cutting continues. Paramount\u2019s all-cash offer for WBD values them at just $1 a share.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tShould Netflix complete its deal, the plan is for the networks and the Warner Bros. International Television Production wing to spin-off on their own. These would be the assets Kim would buy, should a deal emerge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Standard General hedge fund co-founder Soo Kim has held talks over buying into Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD)\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[15284,88,168491,176521,176522,92,10343],"class_list":{"0":"post-355945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-cnn","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-netflix-wb","11":"tag-soo-kim","12":"tag-standard-general","13":"tag-tv","14":"tag-warner-bros-discovery"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}