The people in charge of the world’s biggest media companies are setting the stage for a flurry of deal making.
The moguls are orchestrating corporate maneuvers that could usher in a sweeping reordering of the media industry in 2025. Among them are the leaders of Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN; Comcast, the owner of NBC; and John Malone, the influential investor behind Live Nation.
In addition, Paramount, the owner of MTV and Nickelodeon, could soon have a new owner in David Ellison, who has access to billions of dollars in capital that could be used to strike additional deals.
The starting gun went off in October, when Comcast’s president, Michael Cavanagh, said the company was exploring a spinout of its cable networks, which include SyFy, USA and MSNBC, into a new company. Analysts expect the as-yet-unnamed company to go on a shopping spree, buying up smaller cable networks and peeling off channels from rivals.
Mr. Malone, the cable pioneer with stakes in many major entertainment companies, went next. In November, he replaced his longtime chief executive, Greg Maffei, in tandem with a sale of the broadband business Liberty Broadband and a spin out of Liberty Live, a major shareholder in the concert promoter Live Nation. Some of Mr. Malone’s investors think another merger, between Liberty Live and Live Nation, is in the offing.
On Thursday, Warner Bros. Discovery announced it was planning to reorganize its company into two big divisions, lumping its traditional TV networks into one group and its streaming and studio businesses into another. In its announcement about the change, the company said it would increase its “strategic flexibility,” corporate argot for creating options to buy and sell things. The company’s shares spiked 15 percent on the news, with investors expecting some kind of transaction.
