00:03And so there's some mechanics to why Warner Brothers Discovery took this step.
00:08Yeah, I mean, now we know the deadline for the first bids is a week from yesterday, November 20th.
00:15So that's coming up fast.
00:16And I think this is another signal that, you know, big transaction potentially could be coming down the pipeline sooner rather than later.
00:23You know, they changed that compensation package to account for all these different possibilities.
00:30You know, whether it's a sale of the whole company, whether it's a partial sale or potentially if there is no sale and the company goes through with its plans,
00:38original planned spinoff of the, you know, the cable networks from the studio and streaming business next year.
00:45It's interesting. Now that's a reverse spinoff.
00:47Initially, it was going to be Warner Brothers.
00:48It was spun off the actual bit of movies and the magic and the streaming and cables were going to be left with Discovery Global.
00:56And now it's the other way around.
00:57But whatever the case, David Zaslav is saying, look, I'm committed until 2030 unless he's been, you know, has to leave because the company is bought.
01:06From your perspective, you're hearing more that the insiders would like it as a whole sold or would they like it sold for parts and to different players?
01:15Depends on who the bidder is.
01:16I mean, Paramount Skydance clearly wants the whole thing.
01:19They're happy to take the cable networks that would fit in with their portfolio and give them additional scale.
01:25But if you're talking about Netflix, they have no interest in the cable networks.
01:29They just want, you know, the studio's business, the library, the HBO Max side of things.
01:36Comcast, you could see maybe going either way.
01:38But really, they want the studio, the library in terms of scale, getting their streaming business, Peacock.
01:46I think they're worried that if they don't do a big transaction like this, you know, it's going to be very difficult to keep up with Netflix and Amazon in the years ahead.
01:54Felix, you've already answered this, but let's leave our audience with the what we know.
01:58So explain just very quickly again the deadline and where we think these bids stand.
02:03Yeah, the deadline for the first bids is a week from yesterday, Thursday, November 20th.
02:08We think these three companies are going to submit bids.
02:11And, you know, the Warner Brothers Discovery is saying that they're hoping to get this decided one way or the other by the end of the year.
02:18So we at least now have a very concrete timeline for how they're going to deal with these bids.
02:23Because they've been out there meeting with the bidders, you know, presenting their financials, going through the library and plans.
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