Hollywood Hostile Takeover: Skydance vs. Time Warner and the Streaming Chaos Ahead

LISTEN and SUBSCRIBE on:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/watchdog-on-wall-street-with-chris-markowski/id570687608 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PtgPvJvqc2gkpGIkNMR5i 

WATCH and SUBSCRIBE on:

https://www.youtube.com/@WatchdogOnWallstreet/featured  

Paramount–Skydance just launched a full-blown hostile bid for Time Warner, going straight to shareholders with a $30-per-share cash offer—setting off a year of regulatory wrangling and backroom deal-cutting. From the rise of Netflix and the collapse of old-school studios to streamer consolidation, licensing battles, and consumer exhaustion over too many platforms, the entire entertainment landscape is shaking. Will Netflix counter? Will regulators balk? And is a streamer owning a massive legacy library the turning point Hollywood’s been dreading?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yeah, I figured this deal is going to get a
little bit more complicated, was right? Yet? The Time Warner
deal's gone hostile. Paramount sky Dance announcing a hostile bid
for Time One are going to go directly to the
shareholders with a cash only bid at thirty dollars a

(00:37):
share for all of the assets we shall see. Okay,
first and foremost the regulatory approval for that. It's going
to take a year a year for them to go
through this. And like I said last week, there're a
lot of butt kissing is going to have to take

(00:59):
place in order for this to go through. This is
just how these big deals work at this point in time.
Netflix and what they're doing, and again you got to
think about Netflix. Pretty amazing story in of itself. Read Hastings.
Read Hastings. Now he got the idea for Netflix. He

(01:21):
got pissed off at Blockbuster because he brought back a
video late and they charged him a forty dollars late fee. Now,
for some of you younger people watching this, Netflix wasn't
always streaming. Yeah, we used to, you know, used to

(01:42):
Netflix used to be delivering you DVDs in the mail
to your house. Kind of interesting. Take a look at
Netflix and Amazon kind of started the same way, you know,
Jeff Bezos packing up books with he and his staff
and shipping them off to people who ordered them. And
that was what read Hayes things and his staff did,

(02:04):
thirty employees to stick them and envelopes and drop them
in the mail. Pretty amazing, Pretty amazing. So Warner Brothers
Netflix says they're going to continue to license some of
these names, whether it be Harry Potter or DC. I mean,

(02:25):
they got quite the library that go along with this
two other platforms. I don't I don't know if that's
going to essentially be the case. I don't know why
they would end up doing that With the type of
consolidation that we're seeing. My concern would actually be collusion
between some of these streamers saying hey, listen, you keep

(02:47):
your titles to yourself. We'll keep our titles to ourselves,
and we'll force everybody to sign up for every streaming
service out there. I'm exhausted with the whole thing. Quite frankly,
I don't know about you. I don't even know what
I am subscribed to at this point in time. I
got to do it. I got to do a bloody
streaming audit. And I don't even watch much for crying

(03:08):
out loud, but most people showing their frustration. How do
I watch the ballgame? What channel is the football game on?
Where do I watch this? If you want to watch something,
it has become difficult. I do know that Hulu is
going away, and well not technically going away, their platform

(03:28):
is going away, and it's going to be on the
Disney platform. And it's just it's one thing after another.
Funny line, though funny line I want to share with you.
And this was back when Jeez wasn't even that long ago.
For crying out loud. Time Warner, their chief executive Jeff Bukes,
was asked this is back in two thousand and seven,

(03:50):
whether or not Netflix would be a threat to Time
Warner down the road, and he said it was a
little like the album Indian Army is going to go
take Over the world. Well look at that, Look what
happened anyway, and again Netflix and I remember their first

(04:13):
what was their first real big show was House of
Cards with Kevin Spacey, and I think that they took
that away from HBO and they brought that and it
was it was really first couple of seasons were excellent,
quite frankly. Then I think they had Oranges and New Black,
and they started developing more and more and obviously Stranger
things huge. I think they're streaming the latest last season

(04:36):
which just started, just came out, broke all the records
out there as far as and I happen to enjoy
that show. But neither here nor there do I think
that quality has dropped. Absolutely do I think that Netflix.
You take a look at Reid Hastings and now he's

(04:58):
run things. He's all about shareholder value. That's the reality
he is. He's all about shareholder value. He's gonna say
one thing, but you know, if he feels that it's
not gonna be worthwhile to put movies into theaters, he's
not gonna do it. I don't care what he says. Okay,
this is the reality of the terrain right now. And again,

(05:22):
the entire industry in of itself. Again they turned into pigs.
They turned into pigs. You know, you're charging twenty dollars
for freaking popcorn and fifteen dollars for you know, you
tick people off and they're like, you know what, that's it.
I'm out. And then you know, you mentioned the fact
that you make these movies that are you know, three
hours long and there's no intermission, and you know, can

(05:47):
I get a break here for a second? Can I
run to the restroom and having to miss ten minutes
in the movie. Yeah, people get tired of it, and
this is why they're continued consuming home and nobody wants
to go to theaters anymore. So it'll bit of a
wheelhouse right now. But interesting to have a streamer purchase
a library like this. I do think that Trump administration,

(06:09):
you've got Ellison ties to Skydance, Paramount, would rather have
a library two libraries come together rather than a streaming service.
We shall see money talks in this one. Money talks
and whatever deals are going to be cut behind back,
then that's going to decide this. We're going to see

(06:31):
how this plays out and how shareholder reaction is going
to be. At thirty dollars a share, all cash, which
is what paramount Skydance just offered. Will Netflix have to
up their offer, Will they walk away? Coming soon to
a theater near you, Watchdog on Wall Street dot com