logo
#

Latest news with #It'sNotYou

HBO Max to Launch in 12 Countries in July as WBD Streamer Closes in on 100 Markets (Exclusive)
HBO Max to Launch in 12 Countries in July as WBD Streamer Closes in on 100 Markets (Exclusive)

Yahoo

time10-07-2025

  • Business
  • Yahoo

HBO Max to Launch in 12 Countries in July as WBD Streamer Closes in on 100 Markets (Exclusive)

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) will launch its streaming service HBO Max in a dozen countries, mostly in Europe and some in Asia, in July to bring the streamer to a total of around 90 territories and further accelerate its global growth strategy, 'as the platform approaches availability in 100 markets.' The Hollywood Reporter has learned that the new markets are the Baltic countries, namely Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as Albania, Armenia, Cyprus, Georgia, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malta, and Tajikistan. More from The Hollywood Reporter Banff: BBC Ukraine War Doc 'Hell Jumper' Wins Grand Jury Prize It's Not You, It's WB: A Brief History of Warners' 21st Century Mergers and Breakups Canadian Industry Rebuffs Trump's DEI Rollback The news, coming a day after WBD unveiled that it would split next year into a studios and streaming company and a global networks business, follows the April 15 launch of the WBD streamer in Turkey where BluTV, which the conglomerate acquired at the end of 2023, evolved into a service with a broader content slate. Earlier in the year, the streamer had become available in Australia. Additional launches are planned in 2025 and into 2026, WBD said, adding that 'momentum continues to build for HBO Max.' The conglomerate ended the first quarter of 2025 with 122.3 million streaming subscribers, an increase of 5.3 million from the previous quarter. 'Our continued global expansion of HBO Max is helping fuel the great momentum we continue to see for the service,' says JB Perrette, CEO and president of Global Streaming & Games at Warner Bros. Discovery. 'These 12 countries will be followed by a few additional markets later this year, and launches in Germany, Italy and the U.K. early next year. Each new market further positions HBO Max as a worldwide destination for the best in entertainment.' HBO Max will launch in the new countries with a lineup of content from HBO, Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Studios, as well as Max originals, among others. Among the film library are the likes of A Minecraft Movie and the Harry Potter movies and such series as The Last of Us, The White Lotus, The Pitt, Peacemaker, 90 Day Fiancé and Gold Rush, and such classics as Friends and The Big Bang Theory, along with upcoming series, such as Task and IT: Welcome to Derry. In select countries where the streamer launches next month, sports will also be available on HBO Max, including tennis Grand Slam tournaments, cycling's Grand Tours, and major winter sports events. The rights vary between the countries. HBO Max is bringing its two subscription plans to the new markets, namely its Standard Plan, which allows subscribers to stream on two devices at once with full HD resolution and up to 30 downloads for offline viewing, and its Premium Plan, which allows subscribers to stream on four devices at once with 4K UHD and Dolby Atmos, as available, and up to 100 downloads for offline viewing. News of the July markets comes as Europe has emerged as a key growth engine for the streamer over the past 12 months after its first full year of enhancements. Europe has been the fastest-growing international region for Max, soon to be rebranded HBO Max, subscriptions, and is the streamer's biggest market outside the U.S., according to sources. THR understands that more than 2.5 billion hours have been streamed on the WBD service in Europe since launch, with the time spent on the streamer on a weekly and monthly basis having risen. Hours streaming sports in the in the broader Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region on Max and Discovery+ are understood to have risen 14 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2025, and the Australian Open was the most viewed sporting event on the streamer in EMEA since the Paris Olympics. Among the top series on Max in Europe have been House of the Dragon, The Penguin, The Last of Us, Dune: Prophecy, and The White Lotus. Actually, most new European subscribers checked right into the White Lotus, making it what one source says the streamer's 'most acquisitive title' in the region. The streamer's top films in the region have included Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone, Dune: Part Two, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Beyond WBD's global Hollywood hits, the streamer has also succeeded with local original productions (LOPs). THR understands that 70 percent of all its EMEA subscribers have watched at least one LOP, with locals accounting for more than 15 percent of total first views on the streamer in the region. Poland leads the way, with four of the top 5 most-streamed LOPs coming from the country. Ranked from the top, they are understood to be The Eastern Gate, The Thaw, Spain's When No One Sees Us, X-rated Queen, and A Decent Man. Best of The Hollywood Reporter How the Warner Brothers Got Their Film Business Started Meet the World Builders: Hollywood's Top Physical Production Executives of 2023 Men in Blazers, Hollywood's Favorite Soccer Podcast, Aims for a Global Empire

RichCo vs. PoorCo: Not All Spinoffs Are Created Equal
RichCo vs. PoorCo: Not All Spinoffs Are Created Equal

Yahoo

time18-06-2025

  • Business
  • Yahoo

RichCo vs. PoorCo: Not All Spinoffs Are Created Equal

The creation of Warner Bros. Discovery began with the corporate equivalent of sunshine and rainbows. In February 2021, David Zaslav, then the CEO of Discovery Inc., sent AT&T CEO John Stankey an amiable text. The message, which was adorned with both a golf and sunglasses emoji, sparked a series of talks (including secret meetings in a lower Manhattan townhouse) that led to the creation of WBD in 2022. Just three years later, the sunshine and golf has been replaced by cloudy skies, as the company prepares to split itself up. One current employee who works in what will become Gunnar Wiedenfels' global networks company expressed frustration at the news, lamenting that by the time this deal closes next year, the company will have spent an entire decade shuffling ownership from one entity to the next, from AT&T's deal for Time Warner, to the Discovery deal, to now — all while the stock price and cash flow have steadily declined as the cable iceberg melts, and with layoffs and cuts never ending but executive pay rising. More from The Hollywood Reporter HBO Max to Launch in 12 Countries in July as WBD Streamer Closes in on 100 Markets (Exclusive) It's Not You, It's WB: A Brief History of Warners' 21st Century Mergers and Breakups David Zaslav's SpinCo: Warner Bros. Discovery CEO Outlines "Bold Choice" to Split Company Superficially, at least, WBD's maneuver bears a striking resemblance to Comcast's decision to spin off its cable TV channels into Versant, but it is in the details where the two plans diverge. The biggest difference may be reflected in the very first question that Wall Street analysts asked Zaslav on a conference call on the morning of June 9: the debt. Wiedenfels' global networks company will hold a 'majority' of WBD's more than $30 billion in debt, utilizing its cash-flow-rich but slowly melting assets to service that debt. Versant, by contrast, is expected to have minimal debt, so that it can be an opportunistic acquirer (Versant CEO Mark Lazarus has told fellow media execs that he wants his company to be aggressive and expects to be a buyer rather than a seller). 'If you have a portfolio of what's called linear channels, one of the things you're thinking about is, 'Do they have successors in the streaming world?' And if so, how do I get from here to there?' says Integrated Media CEO Jon Miller, who adds that a high debt load could also make the company less attractive as an acquisition target. 'Not every linear channel is going to make it to the streaming world and thrive in the streaming world. So you're going to have to determine what you believe can thrive in the streaming world and make some choices and investments. If you have a lot of debt on top of that, your ability to invest is more limited. And so by necessity, you have to make even fewer choices in terms of what you invest in going forward.' At Zaslav's studios and HBO business, meanwhile, a solid balance sheet and creative portfolio are offset by losing the cash flow from cable TV. While NBCUniversal holds on to cash-flow-rich businesses like NBC and the Universal theme parks in its spinout, WBD is essentially divesting itself of its cash-flow machine in the name of creating a growth business. Comcast noted that Versant will have about $7 billion in cash flow, while what remains of NBCU will have nearly $40 billion in revenue. While WBD has not yet broken down its financials post-transaction, the linear networks comprise a majority of its revenue, giving it a very different economic profile. Zaslav's business, however, could make for a ripe acquisition target, as Wolfe Research's Peter Supino notes. As for Wiedenfels' side of things, 'Global Networks will not be positioned to die, in our view, but will still shrink materially,' Morningstar analyst Matthew Dolgin dryly wrote June 9. 'Some attractive assets, such as U.S. sports rights, the CNN and Discovery streaming properties, and digital assets like Bleacher Report, can mitigate the linear television networks' decline.' And while Versant has a tight bundle of seven cable TV channels and some digital brands like Fandango, the new WBD networks business will have a larger collection of channels, perhaps giving it more runway to operate but also giving it less ability to focus. And while NBCU spent years trimming down its roster of cable channels to only those it thought mattered, WBD has tried to prop up its channels in the service of survival, with a pivot at TruTV into a sports channel just the latest example. 'NBC, they've been really good and active the past couple of years skinny-ing down their program offerings so we don't have to re-up with networks that are of low value,' says Keith Bowen, president of news, programming and business services for the cable company Optimum. And Lazarus, at Versant, has made it a priority to get employees hyped up about being at what he frames as a well-capitalized startup rather than a holding company for a dying industry. In addition to acquiring companies, Lazarus has talked openly about acquiring new sports rights, about building out a programming team to develop and acquire entertainment, about staffing up in news at MSNBC and CNBC, and about a new temporary midtown Manhattan headquarters (located in the building that used to be the home of The New York Times) that he is dubbing 'summer camp.' While the messaging may change, WBD's initial public pitch remained focused on efficiency, rather than opportunity. But there is opportunity in that efficiency, as Bank of America analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich wrote shortly after the split was announced. 'With Streaming & Studios separated as a standalone public company unburdened by the substantial debt burden, we expect significant investor interest (both public and private) in these highly valuable assets,' she wrote. 'Similarly, as a standalone entity, Global Networks has optionality including asset sales or the potential to become a 'roll up' for other similar assets, likely at attractive valuations and subsequently extract several cost synergies (corporate, advertising sales, etc.) to extend the runway of FCF these assets would yield to service debt over the next several years.' One company that will excite investors, and another that will extract cost synergies to service debt, with any deal a ways away. 'While we view the split of Networks and Streaming & Studios as just the first step to unlock value, a second step may require patience,' Supino writes. The two SpinCos also tell a tale about the future. The first media mogul to broach the idea of spinning off their linear channels was Disney CEO Bob Iger, shortly after rejoining the company in 2022. Disney ultimately opted not to do so, but one wonders whether the company reconsiders in light of what rivals are pursuing. Similar questions are sure to arise as Paramount Global sits in limbo waiting for the Skydance deal to close. The past 30 years of the entertainment business were funded by cable TV cash, but it seems that era is finally coming to an end. The tastemakers gave way to the number crunchers, and now the number crunchers are sending the TV channels off to the vultures. Or, as mogul and dealmaker Barry Diller told THR in a May interview: 'We've gone from a town to a spreadsheet.' The propagators of those spreadsheets are running the show, and have decided that ripping up the businesses they helped forge is the pathway to success. This story appeared in the June 11 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe. Best of The Hollywood Reporter How the Warner Brothers Got Their Film Business Started Meet the World Builders: Hollywood's Top Physical Production Executives of 2023 Men in Blazers, Hollywood's Favorite Soccer Podcast, Aims for a Global Empire

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store