From December above, Comcast did a deal with WBD to have the option to distribute Max, now HBO Max, in the US.
This big news today, thank you @brisco , would seem to indicate that Comcast would have heavier financial incentives to go ahead with those plans to distribute HBO Max (on which one can watch some MLB and NHL), much as Comcast has already with the additional use of their XUMO platform that is on their cable lineup also on other TV platforms via various free FAST channels, including the implemention of NBC Sports Now in January as a FAST channel (with generally dudes talking about sports instead of sports, like usual with their stupid otherwise paid “Regional Sports Networks” between games [now moving more to other media]).
As with XUMO from a technical standpoint, and via HBO Max in collaboration with WBD, I see also no good financial reason that Comcast would need lowly Peacock as a continuous money-loser and crappy app any more, but we shall see.
The brains at Comcast are perfectly capable of even more sheerly idiotic decisions borne of their “cable-brain” legacy stuck in the year 2005.
A Tale in Media History From 2022 to 2025
More on this huge divestiture after only three years after the merger:
On Monday, we finally got the news we were waiting for: Warner Bros. Discovery, formed just three years earlier via the merger of [David] Zaslav’s Discovery, Inc. and AT&T’s WarnerMedia, is being split back up. Zaslav keeps the goods: HBO, HBO Max and the Warner Bros. studios (including TV and DC). His righthand man, WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, gets the leftovers — the cable channels, basically. Oh yeah, and Gunnar also gets the “majority” of WBD’s $37 billion debt load.
For 15 years, Zaslav was Mr. Cable (being coached all the way by his mentor: “Cable Cowboy” John Malone). Zaslav defended the delivery system and the bundle for as long as he could — and then for a few years longer than that.
That stubbornness right there has been since 2010, the first year that cable and satellite subscriptions declined (and not by coincidence when there was a drastic slide in the quality of content with more of those so-called reality shows and more game shows and the like) and is another example of what stubbornness with that cable bundle and an unwillingness to innovate in the industry with existing technology, with of note most streaming applications still not up to modern standards, will get such an executive and media conglomerate.
Rinse and repeat since especially 2010 for various other media moguls as Netflix grew and even Amazon and Google (via YouTube) had entered the entertainment business.
In 2017, he was inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame. Zaslav is a member of the Cable TV Pioneers Class of 2018. Satirically, that was the same year that Zaslav waved the white flag via the launch of Discovery+.
In 2018, there was one huge problem already with that launch as well as of the other early streaming apps including ESPN+ - they were not part of the cable bundle in general and were extra, with cable rates still well on the rise as the quality of programming, NOT simply more people on screen behind desks talking, was on the decline.
Even Zaslav had to say it: streaming was in and cable was out. But there was no way that Discovery+ could compete in the streaming wars, which at the time were all about subscriber growth. A man with mogul ambitions — and a mogul paycheck — wanted more.
In 2022, the $43 billion deal that formed Warner Bros. Discovery — with Zaslav at the helm — was finalized. The creation of WBD came with a mountain of debt, but there were perks. Zaslav, an Old Hollywood head, got his legacy movie studio (WB is 102 years old this year) and a bonafide film lot. He got CNN (and his daughter got a job as a congressional producer there), an upgrade from his old left-leaning cable news channel MSNBC. He also inherited the prestige of prestige-TV through HBO, and for a while there it looked like HBO Max/Max/HBO Max-again just might compete with Disney+ and Netflix. Hell, the New York Knicks fan even got the NBA through Turner. Life was good.
No in 2022, life was anything but “good,” though it did look like things would get better in 2023, which they did. But it was good for Zaslav!
The pay wasn’t so bad either. Zaslav’s 2024 compensation package was valued at nearly $52 million; his 2023 pay was about $50 million. Even in his Discovery-only days Zaslav was among the highest-paid CEOs in media. Patagonia vests aren’t cheap.
And then those shareholders no doubt had to take a bath:
You know who wasn’t making money? WBD shareholders. The newly formed company’s stock opened April 9, 2022 at $42 per share. Today, shares are teetering around $10.
And there it is folks - over a 75% drop in stock price after another key player in the industry generally failed at streaming and botched even the traditional bundle that many did want to keep, but HBO Max continues on now via new management.
Expect a ripple effect across the industry now with the other major players, for the most dire consequences of both a bad cable business and a bad streaming business are being felt in 2025, which in reality is about two years late only due to pandemic delays, in my opinion.
Most alarming to me is how most of an entertainment industry, which EVEN had a captive audience more than ever from March 2020 through about February 2022, botched that opportunity as otherwise Netflix, Amazon, Google, and TikTok cleaned up at their heavy expense.
I might as well put this here as ESPN is set for launch as a standalone streaming service to replace cable ESPN, though it appears ESPN will continue to try to push their other crap like it’s still streaming in 2018.
I’ll cross-post this one here, for it is a summary of how the CFL is falling short of optimizing its media exposure in modern times, especially to the big screen, and has a longer way to go.
US: Streaming TV Beats Broadcast and Cable TV Combined During May, Nielsen Data Shows
“…FAST services continue to grow as PlutoTV, Roku Channel, and Tubi combined for 5.7% of all streaming viewership.”
Via this graphic from copied from the fine article above is this fine article to follow it, credit to Eric Fisher, with data associated with live sports, which have been a primary driver of growth in streaming usage, even though with vastly inconsistent performance and stream quality across streaming services:
Since 2021, when Nielsen first introduced The Gauge to monitor macro-level viewership trends on a monthly basis, streaming usage has grown by 71% while broadcast TV and cable have fallen 21% and 39%, respectively, in that time.
“While many expected this milestone to occur sooner, sporting events, news, and new season [entertainment] content have kept broadcast and cable surprisingly resilient,” Nielsen SVP Brian Fuhrer said. “The trend [toward streaming], however, has been very consistent.”
And the biggest reasons, in my opinion, that this milestone did not occur sooner was none other than the pandemic along with the cable and Hollywood studio establishment rolling out generally subpar streaming services.
As merely one case in point beyond the top two in usage now YouTube and Netflix, the bloated Disney bundle of three services not even coming close in third, is the following:
Roku, which increasingly sees itself as a key starting point for streamers and has resumed streaming of MLB games, itself captured 2.5% of the total television audience during May, greater than the individual shares for Paramount+, Max, or Peacock.
Mind you that Roku also has easy access to recorded content for a number of other sports that are niche in the US, including Formula One (also on Pluto TV, I do believe) as well as various fight-sport promotions including ONE Championship.
Note this reality is despite HBO Max, now the name (again) of Max, having live sports like the NHL.
It looks to me like it’s time for the studios or cable firms to scrap their own services, which it appears Comcast has already started by shifting more content onto its streaming and FAST-channel technology platform XUMO from horrible Peacock, as well as noted above Comcast’s existing deal to distribute HBO Max (i.e. essentially a quiet merger of services that is likely on the road to phasing out of Peacock).