Why is Hollywood like Afghanistan?
Because no Wall Street conglomerate has been able to figure out how the entertainment industry works to conquer it.
Sure, the idea of combining content and distribution makes sense, but clearly there’s more to the calculation.
A recent Washington Post article notes that another big player is surrendering to this reality in the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger-spinoff.
It notes that problems arose almost immediately after the acquisition by putting a “bellhead” in charge of the division, not spending enough time schmoozing the important players, introducing HBOMax before it was fully cooked and reacting to the Covid crisis by moving all releases to its online Max channel without doing the diplomacy of getting important team players to buy in.
Just like when an Italian soccer owner bought MGM, or when Time bought AOL or when Matsushita bought MCA (Universal), things went badly and the divorce was inevitable.
Only Comcast has, apparently, been able to handle the wild pony, by already being in the business.
Good analysis by Mr. Zeitchik. Check it out.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/05/22/discovery-warner-media-att-spinoff/
Source: https://jeffkoeppel.wordpress.com/2021/05/25/why-is-hollywood-like-afghanistan/
