Headline: "Warner Bros. Discovery Posts Nearly $10 Billion Loss" - No Kidding?

Route246

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WSJ has a story behind their paywall about WB/Discovery posting a $10B loss due to the plunging value of their linear networks.

My response is, "No kidding, idiot!"

Their legacy business model is targeted at us in this forum and totally neglects the future consumers around the world, our grandchildren's and great-grandchildren's generations. We are dying off and many of us who are lucky enough not to die off yet are having more and more options where we spend our leisure time.

Don't any of these people managing this company ever listen to their children and grandchildren? Peter Lynch had it right. These people are so used to ripping us off that they can't figure out what to do when competition emerges. They can try to lobby for killing net neutrality, ISP data caps and stronger DMCA enforcement but that ship sailed years ago. The younger generations don't know what a landline phone bill is, have no clue that Grandma and Grandpa used to pay huge fees by the minute to talk to friends and family who live 50 miles away and more importantly they don't know why things that are free should cost money.

We need to thank the younger generations for the quality of life us old people enjoy. Imagine, calling overseas for free. Wow!!! What a concept!!! I don't know anyone under 25 who has ever paid for a call overseas. I don't know anyone over 50 who has not paid for a call overseas and for those over 50 who have not they never had the opportunity to try years ago.

Two of the Magnificent 7 (Google and FB) figured this out and don't charge for rather robust functionality. Zuck told Senator Hatch how it works:

Sen. Hatch: "If [a version of Facebook will always be free], how do you sustain a business model in which users don't pay for your service?"
Mark Zuckerberg: "Senator, we run ads."
 
Best investment at&t made was getting this off their books... $40 billion debt & $9 billion written down. About 3-4 quarters of cash... Not a good combination.
 
WSJ has a story behind their paywall about WB/Discovery posting a $10B loss due to the plunging value of their linear networks.
FYI. I don't know why people don't know this, but I keep trying to pass the word. When you quote WSJ as a subscriber, simply link the article using the "Gift unlocked article" button at the top. I understand NYT also has something similar on many articles.

Like this:
 
WSJ has a story behind their paywall about WB/Discovery posting a $10B loss due to the plunging value of their linear networks.

My response is, "No kidding, idiot!"

Their legacy business model is targeted at us in this forum and totally neglects the future consumers around the world, our grandchildren's and great-grandchildren's generations. We are dying off and many of us who are lucky enough not to die off yet are having more and more options where we spend our leisure time.

Don't any of these people managing this company ever listen to their children and grandchildren? Peter Lynch had it right. These people are so used to ripping us off that they can't figure out what to do when competition emerges. They can try to lobby for killing net neutrality, ISP data caps and stronger DMCA enforcement but that ship sailed years ago. The younger generations don't know what a landline phone bill is, have no clue that Grandma and Grandpa used to pay huge fees by the minute to talk to friends and family who live 50 miles away and more importantly they don't know why things that are free should cost money.

We need to thank the younger generations for the quality of life us old people enjoy. Imagine, calling overseas for free. Wow!!! What a concept!!! I don't know anyone under 25 who has ever paid for a call overseas. I don't know anyone over 50 who has not paid for a call overseas and for those over 50 who have not they never had the opportunity to try years ago.

Two of the Magnificent 7 (Google and FB) figured this out and don't charge for rather robust functionality. Zuck told Senator Hatch how it works:

Sen. Hatch: "If [a version of Facebook will always be free], how do you sustain a business model in which users don't pay for your service?"
Mark Zuckerberg: "Senator, we run ads."
Or, when something is free, it's not the product -- you're the product.

There's also the adage that you get what you pay for, which I think still holds true. The amount of trash content on "free" networks is breathtaking, and to me, somewhat sad. But a lot of Americans lack an eye for quality, and there's obviously a market for garbage.

Not that WB is the font of knowledge. But I'm dismayed to watch our society sliding into an intellectual dumpster, the skids greased by "free content" and clickbait.
 
We need to thank the younger generations for the quality of life us old people enjoy. Imagine, calling overseas for free. Wow!!! What a concept!!! I don't know anyone under 25 who has ever paid for a call overseas. I don't know anyone over 50 who has not paid for a call overseas and for those over 50 who have not they never had the opportunity to try years ago.
Blame me, not the kids. Back when my Megacorp was on top of their game, we were one of a handful of corps who made this happen. This was mid 90s. The hardware and software was incredibly fun to work on. We had visionary leaders and brilliant tech leaders. We also had a few politically minded leaders who knew they were in for a battle with the likes of AT&T and the overseas carriers, and subsequent fights with governments.

Alas, Megacorp's leaders left and the company was never the same. But we destroyed expensive long distance, so hey. (My apologies to anyone here who had a job based on long distance fees.)

In the end we spoiled our kids! And what really distresses me most is we enabled all the overseas scammers.
 
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Yeah, we know Facebook does way more than run ads!

It took me a while to recognize that was John McEnroe on the left and Dustin Hoffman on the right in the photo with Zasclav.

So I guess the whole Max bit hasn’t been good either? Probably destroyed their premium brand HBO. We dropped HBO after the new app because the lousy software they use to detect location consistently thinks we’re in Mexico.
 
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Yeah, we know Facebook does way more than run ads!

It took me a while to recognize that was John McEnroe on the left and Dustin Hoffman on the right in the photo with Zasclav.

So I guess the whole Max bit hasn’t been good either? Probably destroyed their premium brand HBO. We dropped it after the new app because the lousy software they use to detect location consistently thinks we’re in Mexico.
+1
I still don’t understand dropping the HBO brand name, it had a premium value and very high recognition. When I see Max I still think “Cinemax”. I also have had a terrible time with the app.
 
Yes, that just killed me when they did that. Huge name HBO - and just to drop it?!! Crazy.
 
Not sure how this is really gonna work with streaming live sports. It’s awful. The WNBA is on fire right now and several streamers have their games. They take commercial breaks but it’s dead air. All the traditional networks have premium streaming versions like peacock. There are too many. Amazon and others have outbid cable companies so NFL is taking the money but fewer eyeballs are on the product.
 
Glad I dumped my entire, small position of WBD back in February. I saw this stock was going nowhere but down after the spinoff from AT&T
 
I am about to get rid of Comcast for my internet... I pay $110 for internet and phone... a new company is installing fiber and will have the internet at a much faster speed at $70... Comcast is dying...

I wish I could find a cheaper service for my TV.. I have Dish and it keeps going up... none of the streaming services I see have what I want... but Dish is dying also...

BTW, when we went to Europe you could buy a phone plan with a LOT of data for $20... we always seem to have much higher prices here...
 
BTW, when we went to Europe you could buy a phone plan with a LOT of data for $20... we always seem to have much higher prices here...
You forgot about the licence to watch over-the-air TV or in some places listen to the radio.

I'm personally thankful for what I have here.
 
I am about to get rid of Comcast for my internet... I pay $110 for internet and phone... a new company is installing fiber and will have the internet at a much faster speed at $70... Comcast is dying...

I wish I could find a cheaper service for my TV.. I have Dish and it keeps going up... none of the streaming services I see have what I want... but Dish is dying also...

BTW, when we went to Europe you could buy a phone plan with a LOT of data for $20... we always seem to have much higher prices here...
I noticed Spectrum is now offering faster upload speeds and more competitive offers to compete with fiber. In-laws cable still goes out way too much for my comfort.
 
BTW, when we went to Europe you could buy a phone plan with a LOT of data for $20... we always seem to have much higher prices here...
I have unlimited with 35G of premium data for $25/month. There are cheaper plans in the US too.

Agree with dropping the HBO brand. Terrible idea and the Max app isn’t nearly as good.
 
I have unlimited with 35G of premium data for $25/month. There are cheaper plans in the US too.

Agree with dropping the HBO brand. Terrible idea and the Max app isn’t nearly as good.
What plan?

DW is using 15G or so and we pay about $50 all in...
 
We need to thank the younger generations for the quality of life us old people enjoy. Imagine, calling overseas for free. Wow!!! What a concept!!! I don't know anyone under 25 who has ever paid for a call overseas. I don't know anyone over 50 who has not paid for a call overseas and for those over 50 who have not they never had the opportunity to try years ago.
I think it is the other way around, where the younger generations are enjoying what was discovered and built before them. The pace of technological progress has been amazing since the telegraph and everyone is enjoying a higher quality of life today because of each little improvement over time.

I agree the big content providers (e.g. the main topic of this thread) are not so flexible. I think they should make some profit on their content but does that mean going to something like a youtube model? And I am glad to see the old model of paying $$ for a long distance call just to call across some artifical boundary is gone.
 
I am about to get rid of Comcast for my internet... I pay $110 for internet and phone... a new company is installing fiber and will have the internet at a much faster speed at $70... Comcast is dying...

I wish I could find a cheaper service for my TV.. I have Dish and it keeps going up... none of the streaming services I see have what I want... but Dish is dying also...

BTW, when we went to Europe you could buy a phone plan with a LOT of data for $20... we always seem to have much higher prices here...
Try youtube tv. About $73/month and they have a free trial. YouTube TV - Watch & DVR Live Sports, Shows & News
 
Back on topic, the legacy business model is the real point. Cory Doctorow has commented in several articles and even written a great book about it. It was the word of the year for 2023, it's called Enshittification. Most of the upper tier companies are approaching this monopolistic or oligarchic situation. Google got rid of "Don't be evil" and Amazon/Walmart have swallowed up everything else. Facebook's ONLY redeeming value is staying in touch with distant friends or family, and that is used to prevent actual competition, like how it bought Instagram.

As it was previously mentioned and for those of us that remember; the cost for phone calls and how "MA Bell" had a stranglehold and it took several DECADES for the government to finally break them up under anti-trust statues, and now the companies basically now own the government(s) by lobbying.

Bigger picture is how Citizens United was the "death knell" for America, allowing big companies to use their money to prevent the government from breaking them up because they have gotten too big.

There was an interesting TV show called Continuum that explored what society would be like if our situation continues, amongst a Time Travel Sci-Fi trope. Its not pretty for most, and the characters at the top enjoy all the benefits, while the majority are basically slaves to the corporate machine that literally owns them.
 
When my husband died, I was not in a position mentally to start changing things around. But after the last time that dish network got angry at CBS that I remember, long before husband died, they were running an ad where CBS used to be saying if you buy an antenna you can get your over the net air network for free. We went out and bought an antenna.

The three years I had dish network, I didn’t have the bandwidth with everything else I was dealing with to change anything. When I moved, I cut it. It’s gone. I bought a Roku and got used to using that. With Pluto TV I have a great deal of content that’s free. With a few streaming services I never have to worry about what I’m watching on TV, and I still use the antenna. Believe it or not I watch a lot of network television.

I grew up in the era of appointment TV. If you didn’t watch it at 8 o’clock you had to wait for the reruns in the summer. I am very used to that and I find it suits me. So I watch a lot of network TV at night. I am a Tiffany network woman. That may change.

At this point I have no choice but to pay for PBS five dollars a month — it’s a donation I’m OK with, it’s going to a good cause. I moved to a very hilly area, and antennas don’t really work here well.

I also pay for Acorn TV. I also occasionally pay for BritBox. I find BritBox doesn’t change things around much so I go on and off of that. so in total I think I pay 12.99 a month for television right now. I might get history hits which I think is 7.99 a month too… so I can indulge in my English history fascination.

I realized soon after my husband died, but I just wasn’t watching television during the day at all. I was way too busy sorting and packing and dumping and heaving boxes due to clear out. Dear sweet man was a hoarder. I’d love him back in a heartbeat, but, this time I think we would have a very serious talk about this hoarding thing… might even nag.
 
I believe streaming PBS is free if a given show has been broadcast within the past couple of weeks. If you want access to their catalog, past series etc., then you need to be a member which is $60 a year or $5 a month.
 
I'm still PO'd that these people didn't properly archive/make available the classic military aircraft series "Wings," so serves em right :)
 
I'm still PO'd that these people didn't properly archive/make available the classic military aircraft series "Wings," so serves em right :)
I loved that show. I think my old VHS tapes of the series are moldy now. Who knew?

But Frontiers of Flight/Great Planes/Wings is available on Youtube. Heh, heh, I'd forgotten that Mason Adams did a lot of the narration on Frontiers of Flight. What a voice!
 
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