Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said Donald Trump‘s re-election as president bodes well for media M&A.
“We have an upcoming new administration,” the exec noted during WBD’s quarterly earnings call Thursday. “It’s too early to tell, but it may offer a pace of change and an opportunity for consolidation that may be quite different, that would provide a real positive and accelerated impact on this industry that’s needed. These are great companies. If the best content is going to win, there needs to be some consolidation in order to have these businesses be stronger and have a better consumer experience.”
Zaslav’s comments came after WBD reported third-quarter results, with streaming growth offset by a Barbie-less film slate. He spoke with the conviction of someone who not only commands a major media company but also the fervor of someone who has fumbled with a remote control in the living room.
“I’ve been saying for a long time that this is an industry that really needs to meaningfully consolidate,” he said. “It’s really driven by the consumer experience. Consumers put on their TV set and they see 16 apps and each of those is doing different pricing, you’re sitting there with your phone and Googling where a show is or where a sport is. You’re going from one to another, and there are so many.”
Not only, he continued, is the current setup “just not a good consumer experience – it’s not sustainable. There probably should have been more meaningful consolidation. … and you’re starting to see it now. You’re starting to see fairly large players saying, ‘Hey, maybe I should be part of you or maybe I should be a part of somebody else.’”
Against this backdrop of “generational disruption,” in Zaslav’s words, WBD has kept its assets intact in the two-and-a-half years since it was formed, which is a different stance than rivals like Comcast and Paramount Global. The former is exploring a spinoff of its cable network assets and the latter has a pending merger in place with Skydance Media. On a lower tier of market value, Lionsgate has also pursued a split of its studio and networks businesses.
Discovery, which Zaslav ran for 15 years before combining it with WarnerMedia in 2022, has been active in recent years on the M&A front. In 2018, it acquired Scripps Networks Interactive, bringing unscripted networks like HGTV and Food Network into the fold before Zaslav began negotiating the combination with WarnerMedia.
While the CEO’s take on Trump is shared by many in the business world, the president-elect’s record on regulatory matters during his first term was decidedly mixed. For all of his pro-business pronouncements and commercial pursuits while in office, he did subject some companies to scrutiny, especially in the tech sector. Zaslav’s predecessors overseeing the former Time Warner properties also had to contend with the efforts of Trump appointees at the Department of Justice to block the company’s acquisition by AT&T. The DOJ’s lawsuit was ultimately rejected by a federal judge, allowing the $85 billion merger to close in 2018.