Is this TV's endgame? A discussion with analyst Rich Greenfield.

Business Insider

2 days ago

The TV business is not slowing down this summer: Any day now, David and Larry Ellison will finally buy Paramount, with its collection of once-storied TV networks like CBS and MTV. A few weeks later, ESPN and Fox — the last two big TV players that haven't launched their own streamers — will launch their own streamers.
But on the other hand, the TV business has been slowing down for a decade: Every quarter, more cable TV subscribers cut the cord, or never sign up for a cord in the first place. The people who own cable TV networks don't seem to have any plan to deal with the issue, other than trying to sell their cable TV networks.
Lightshed analyst Rich Greenfield has been chronicling the industry's massive, internet-driven change for years. I caught up with him on my Channels podcast to talk through the particular challenges — and perhaps some opportunities — facing TV right now. Here's an edited excerpt of our chat.
Peter Kafka: When the music business collapsed back in the Napster era, it happened basically overnight. But TV has hung on for much longer, even though consumer behavior changed pretty significantly over the last decade.
Is there something specific about the TV industry that's allowed these guys to move in slow motion?
Rich Greenfield: There's very few businesses where you can raise the price on a product that consumers are using less and less every day.
The brilliance of the cable TV business model was the big fat bundle. It's a pretty incredible business to put all of these channels together, even if people don't want most of them.
It had everything you wanted and no alternatives, which is very different than where we are today.
One of my soapboxes is when I hear people saying they wish we could go back to the cable days. And I keep saying, that was terrible. You guys forget. Everyone hated that.
I think consumers are pretty adept at managing their services, and I don't hear a lot of complaints. Sometimes it's like, "Where is this game?" Or "How do I find this thing?" It can be a little confusing.
But think about your cellphone. You've had one for quite a while now. Managing the apps and deleting something if you're not using it and adding something —these are all pretty easy functions.
We don't give consumers enough credit. They're pretty adept at figuring out cheaper solutions and ways to manage.
I want to ask you about a few specific companies. The Paramount deal is finally going to close. What do you think the new owners — David Ellison and his father, Larry Ellison — will do once they have control? Will it change overnight, or is this a slow-rolling thing?
It will certainly change.
The juxtaposition is sort of amazing. [Paramount, under current owner Shari Redstone, is a] financially strapped company, with challenged financial ownership.
And you're moving to an ownership team that is one of the wealthiest families on planet Earth.
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David Ellison is probably going to be running this company for 30, 40 years. He obviously has a passion for entertainment. He's moving to a much bigger stage.
But this is still a financially struggling company. He can't fix the trends of what consumer behavior is changing. What he can do is invest and really build.
And you saw the "South Park" deal they just cut, where they're spending hundreds of millions of dollars to move the show [exclusively] to Paramount+. I think it's a small sign of the post-merger strategy, which is that David Ellison is not just doing this to cut costs and squeeze more juice out of this existing company. His goal is to build something significant with a very long-term perspective, which is going to require a lot of investment.
What does that look like? Is the new Paramount just a film studio and a streaming service and CBS — and Ellison sells off everything that's not those things?
I think initially they'll say they need the cash flow from cable and will use that cash flow to reinvest.
I would be shocked if you didn't see more sports on CBS. I think they will be a contender for UFC rights. You've seen David Ellison multiple times in the past year sitting in the front row, cage side with Ari Emanuel [ CEO of TKO Group, which owns UFC ], and with [UFC CEO] Dana White.
And Donald Trump.
I don't disagree there on politics. But I also think he likes the content. I think he's going to spend a lot of money.
He understands the tech North Star — whether we're talking about TikTok, Meta, Netflix, or Spotify — it's all about time spent. I think David gets that Paramount+ needs a heck of a lot more time spent. The only way you're gonna get there is a better product and more content.
Let's move to Disney. Sometime in the next few weeks, before college football and the NFL starts, ESPN will finally be something you can buy as a stand-alone streaming service. If they rolled this out in 2015, we would have said it's a really big deal. Is it a big deal in 2025?
At $30 a month, I don't think this is a huge deal. My guess is it gives them flexibility to start packaging this with other services. They can probably get some subscribers. Not a lot. It's probably low to mid-single-digit millions. Not millions and millions.
Remember, they're giving the new service to everybody who already subscribed to [pay TV]. So 65 million-plus ESPN subscribers are going to get this new ESPN app at no additional cost.
So who is the audience for this? You're not subscribing to the big bundle. You're a pretty passionate sports fan. You're willing to spend $30 a month for sports. My guess is it's just a small number.
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It actually makes sense to do it. But I don't think, at the end of the day, it is a huge needle-mover. What's going to matter to Disney stock is their theme park business and their cruise ship business. Those being better than expected — because of the state of the economy and what's happened with tariffs not being as problematic as feared a few months ago — is far more important to Disney than what happens with the ESPN streaming rollout.
We're also close to the launch of Fox's own streamer, Fox One. The main assets there are Fox Sports — which is really the NFL — and Fox News. Do you think Fox thinks this is primarily a product for people who want to watch football, or do you think it's primarily for Fox News fans?
I think this is a pretty limited offering for a sports fan.
I think you'll see more uptake from Fox News viewers.
In the old days, you would have said that Fox News has a very old audience. And the idea that its audience is going to stream it doesn't make sense. But maybe that's not true in 2025?
Streaming's become pretty normalized. When you look at how many subscribers Netflix now has, I don't think streaming is some elitist thing. I think it's pretty normalized.
I think the part you may be missing is that the Fox News audience is also widening out.
And as you make it available to people on streaming, you may pick up some younger people. Maybe it's more interesting during election years. It creates flexibility. And I don't think there's a whole lot of downside.
All the basic cable networks are in freefall. Everyone who owns them is trying to sell them — either directly to another buyer or, in the case of Comcast's Versant, trying to bundle it up as a publicly traded stock. Who is a buyer for cable networks?
I don't think there are enough people talking about this topic. So many of the investors I deal with, or even industry executives I talk to, think you're going to see Paramount do a deal with Warner Bros. Or maybe you'll see Versant merge with some of the Paramount cable networks.
But let's just step back. I think David Ellison and Larry Ellison have a much bigger plan than aggregating more linear cable networks. I would be surprised if that was the strategy. I think there's a much bigger plan that the Ellison family is probably thinking about that goes well beyond just aggregating more legacy media assets.
WarnerMedia merged with Discovery, which hasn't created value. CBS and Viacom became Paramount, and that hasn't created value. Disney bought most of Fox's cable networks, and that hasn't created value. Putting legacy assets together that are in secular decline doesn't work. Maybe it might've been worse [without those deals].
But that's not compelling for a buyer.
It's a reason to be a seller. As a buyer, there's lots of things you could buy and lots of places you could go. The idea that buying more of these assets so that you have more costs to cut doesn't seem really compelling.
Another reason you are skeptical about big media consolidation is politics. You think that either antitrust politics, or Donald Trump's personal politics, make that unlikely. The only media mogul he wasn't complaining about was Rupert Murdoch, and now he's suing Murdoch.
I think it's going to be challenging.