Major asset sales like this never look good. But, if a company is in bad enough shape to need that much money quickly, it would make more sense to do them before removing shows to dodge residual payments.by Vivek Kumar
2 days ago
WB Discovery was formed as a result of merging Warnermedia by AT&T and Discovery, Inc. last year on April 8, 2022. In an effort to prevent the complete failure of the multinational multimedia company, this new merge was seen as a life savior. The Chief Executive Officer of WB Discovery David Zaslav has now decided to trim off the loan from their budget by selling the historic music library worth $1 billion as per reports.
WB Continues to Scrap Shows and Actors
A few months after the merger, Zaslav took several steps including the firing of several executives, a merger with British telecom BT company group, and following its lawsuit against shareholders who argued that the company is investing a lot on streaming platforms without securing a safe channel of return. It is not a hidden fact that the past few years have not been good for WB Discovery altogether. WB has scrapped many projects including Scoob!: Holiday Haunt and Batgirl which is the most expensive canceled cinematic project. The removal of fan-favorite Henry Cavill as Superman and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman continues to be the stepping stone toward the doom of WB.
The Warner Bros movie studio created a music division back in the 1950s. In 2004 the parent company sold the music division but retained the copyrights of music. Now, this decision to sell music tracks from decades-old collections has outraged the public, resulting in harsh criticism against the current board for not handling the company’s legacy properly.
WB’s Decision to Sell their Music Tracks Invites Public Wrath
Zaslav who is planning to reduce the company’s financial burden by selling the tracks in the hot market of music copyrights can make up to $1 billion as per reports. The Chief Financial Officer of WB Discovery, Gunnar Wiedenfels has his own say in justifying the company’s action.Though the entire process is in the initial stages and no confirmations have been made so far about the access and no, of music tracks that will be made available for potential buyers. WB Discovery was hard hit last year as its shares dropped by more than half. But the beginning of the new year shows some promise as the shares rise by more than a third. Many claim that the move by Zaslav is important to save WB Discover. Fans already have a long list of reasons to be upset with the company, and this news looks like a new addition to that list. The future of WB is surely unclear but its new board seems to be trying its best to save the firm.“We shaved off a lot of the excess last year, and I think that’s something that everyone else in the industry is going to go through. We’re coming from an irrational time of overspending with very limited focus on return on investment. We are just consistently and continuously looking at how we’re running the business. What makes sense? What doesn’t make sense?”
Also, on december 21, the podcast Baseless Speculation put out an episode discussing the current state of the DC cinematic universe. It doesn't sound like it can be salvaged, but I'll admit I listen to that podcast because they can be entertainingly stupid, not because I expect any thoughtful insight out of them.
