{"id":2125004,"date":"2025-10-30T15:58:03","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T15:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2125004"},"modified":"2025-10-30T15:58:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T15:58:03","slug":"comcast-reveals-interest-in-warner-bros-studios-and-streamer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/comcast-reveals-interest-in-warner-bros-studios-and-streamer\/","title":{"rendered":"Comcast reveals interest in Warner Bros. studios and streamer"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

NBCUniversal owner Comcast is indeed interested in some of Warner Bros. Discovery\u2019s assets.<\/p>\n

On a Thursday call with analysts to discuss third-quarter earnings, Comcast President Mike Cavanagh suggested the Philadelphia giant might bid for certain Warner assets, primarily the Warner Bros. film and television studios and its streaming service HBO Max. <\/p>\n

Sources had previously said Comcast was angling to join the Warner Bros. Discovery auction<\/a> after that company\u2019s board formally opened the process last week. The Warner board has unanimously rejected three unsolicited bids<\/a> from David Ellison\u2019s Paramount<\/a>, which has offered $58 billion for all of Warner Bros. Discovery. <\/p>\n

Comcast isn\u2019t looking to acquire the entire company or Warner\u2019s large portfolio of cable channels that include celebrity.land, TBS and Food Network. Instead, Cavanagh suggested that Comcast\u2019s interest would be more narrow. <\/p>\n

He noted that NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. have compatible businesses. Comcast wants to grow its studios business and its struggling streaming service, Peacock, which lost $217 million during the quarter. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou should expect us to look at things that are trading in our space … It\u2019s our job to try to figure out if there are ways to add value,\u201d Cavanagh told analysts.<\/p>\n

But he added a note of caution, saying the company didn\u2019t feel that a merger was \u201cnecessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bar is very high for us to pursue any [merger] transactions,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The Warner Bros. Discovery auction comes amid deep turmoil in the industry. Traditional entertainment companies, including Warner and NBCUniversal, have long relied heavily on cable programming fees to boost profit but consumers have been scaling back on pay-TV subscriptions amid the move to streaming.<\/p>\n

To address that challenge, Comcast is spinning off its cable channels, including CNBC, MSNBC, USA and Golf Channel, into a separately traded company called Versant. That process is expected to be complete this year. <\/p>\n

As part of the transition, the liberal-leaning MSNBC is changing its name to MS Now<\/a> and dropping the peacock from its network logo, reflecting its pending exit from NBC, which will remain part of Comcast.<\/p>\n

Cavanagh suggested that Comcast would not double-down in a declining cable channel business that it was already exiting.<\/p>\n

But Warner has other compelling businesses, including HBO and its Warner Bros. film and television studio. The Warner Bros. studio has released a string of movie blockbusters this year, including \u201cSuperman\u201d and \u201cA Minecraft Movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warner and NBCUniversal are investing in their respective streaming services but both lag Netflix, YouTube and Walt Disney Co. in terms of subscribers and engagement. Peacock has 41 million subscribers; the service has lost billions of dollars since Comcast launched it five years ago.<\/p>\n

To shore up Peacock and the NBC broadcast network, Comcast has doubled-down on sports, including striking a $27-billion, 10-year deal for NBA basketball, a contract kicked in this month<\/a> with the new season. (Nielsen ratings for the inaugural NBA game on NBC last week were strong \u2014 nearly 5 million viewers).<\/p>\n

Most analysts believe that Ellison\u2019s Paramount is in the best position to win Warner Bros. Discovery. They point to the Ellison family\u2019s determination, wealth and political connections. Tech titan Larry Ellison, who is backing his son\u2019s bid, is the second-richest man in the world behind Elon Musk and President Trump views the elder Ellison as a good friend.<\/p>\n

In contrast, Trump has displayed a dim view of Comcast Chairman and Chief Executive Brian Roberts, in large part, because of Comcast\u2019s ownership of MSNBC, which Trump has accused of being an arm of the Democratic National Committee.<\/p>\n

The tension has led observers to conclude that Comcast would face a stormy regulatory review process with Trump overseeing the Department of Justice, which would likely perform an anti-trust review of any major transaction for Warner Bros. Discovery.<\/p>\n

Concerns about Comcast\u2019s ability to get deals through the Trump administration may be overblown, Cavanagh said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think more things are viable than maybe some of the public commentary [suggests],\u201d Cavanagh said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NBCUniversal owner Comcast is indeed interested in some of Warner Bros. Discovery\u2019s assets. On a Thursday call with analysts to discuss third-quarter earnings, Comcast President Mike Cavanagh suggested the Philadelphia giant might bid for certain Warner assets, primarily the Warner Bros. film and television studios and its streaming service HBO Max. Sources had previously said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2125005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2125004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Comcast-reveals-interest-in-Warner-Bros-studios-and-streamer.com2Feb2F922Ff4613ef4440189aaf62ad2b5.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2125004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2125006,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125004\/revisions\/2125006"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2125005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2125004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2125004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2125004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}