Janice Min, The Ankler founder and CEO, joins 'Power Lunch' to discuss the significance of Warner Bros. Discovery exploring a sale, the holy grail in today's media environment and much more.

Hollywood

Hollywood is undergoing significant changes as the traditional cable bundle model continues to unravel, leading to a period of consolidation and strategic repositioning among major studios and streaming platforms. Companies like Warner Brothers Discovery have taken on substantial debt in efforts to remain competitive, while the market appears to be narrowing to a few dominant players such as Disney, Netflix, and Amazon, with a potential fourth contender yet to be determined.

The industry's primary focus has shifted from scale and content spending to profitability and survival, with enduring intellectual property and international brand strength seen as key assets. The rise of new technologies and platforms, including YouTube and AI-driven content creation tools, is further reshaping the competitive landscape, pushing studios to emphasize high-quality, brand-safe content that appeals to both consumers and advertisers.

The Ankler: Hollywood is struggling as its cable bundle melts

Let's bring in the Ankler founder and CEO, Janice Min. Janice, welcome. We seem to be in this period where there's this swing between bundling and unbundling, not just in content, but in corporate structures. You've got Comcast breaking apart, but maybe looking at adding something. Versant, which CNBC is a part of, is talking about trying to add some things. Various companies doing various things. Netflix sitting pretty. What's the significance of Warner Brothers' discovery in all this? Well, we're kind of in a Goldilocks moment with these studios and streamers. Everyone is looking to find the right way to build out the greatest value in their company. But I think what we're really seeing now is the shakeout in that everyone has presumed was coming for at least since the streaming wars began in earnest with everyone chasing Netflix, that not everyone could survive. And as a result of that, you had companies like Warner Brothers Discovery taking on staggering amounts of debt when they merged not that long ago, $36 billion in debt. And now it seems like we're gonna probably end up in a universe of Disney, Netflix, Amazon, and the fourth player remains to be seen. I don't think David Ellison at Paramount Skydance was looking to become the seventh biggest player. I presume he assumes he's going to have that fourth seat. I also think that this was the greatest gift that ever happened to David Zasloff to be able to have it leak out that Paramount had a low ball offer. And suddenly here we are today, this asset that kind of had no way out except to split now has created a market and a lot of interest. Gift, I mean, it could have been a gift to himself who knows how these things leak, you know. Happy birthday to me. Well, what is the holy grail in this media environment? That is five years ago, these companies, a lot of them were chasing scale, look across Disney, Peacock, others, spending on programming, on content, thinking that was gonna get them bigger, but then profitability concerns hit. So what is it? Is it IP? What is it that's really the key asset here? Well, you could make yourself crazy here trying to figure out what the goal is. So the number one goal is profitability. The number two goal is survival, right? And you had a segment just now about OpenAI, for example. And when you think about where the headwinds of entertainment are going, YouTube is now the biggest single streamer on living room TVs. You have OpenAI, which introduced Sora 2, which creates an enclosed entertainment system using a lot of IP from Hollywood and Hollywood studios. So these companies, I would say the end game, the goal keeps changing. I would say one of the goals right now is to be big enough to compete in a universe where there is, you know, people call it internet sludge everywhere and to have enduring intellectual property, enduring titles, the best in class. And I will say Warner Brothers Discovery, Warner Brothers in particular has some of the most storied brands in history. On the television side, you know, from Friends to ER to Big Bang Theory. On the movie side, Harry Potter, which is now getting translated into TV. HBO, which remains incredibly in this environment, the crown jewel of television. So if you can imagine, you know, a Netflix, for example, which has seen North American growth stall, which is across the board in streaming. And HBO Max continues to grow internationally. These are brands that can take you around the world. And to be able to demonstrate that kind of value to the consumer and more importantly, as they've entered into advertising to produce safe brand friendly content that is of high quality, it's a dream.

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Breakdown