Paramount poised to acquire Warner Bros.
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What recent acquisition is Paramount poised to make?
Paramount is, well, Paramount in the big Hollywood eat or be eaten saga. Dave Brancaccio in Los Angeles here. This is what stock market investors at least see as a win-win outcome. The studio Paramount Skydance stock is up more than 8% in pre-market trading now. after it's emerging the victor in the battle to buy rival Warner Brothers. And Netflix stock is also up by the same percentage because it pulled out and won't have to pay all that money to Warner Brothers, an entertainment conglomerate that owns movie and TV studios, streaming outlets and cable TV channels, including CNN. Here's Marketplace's Nancy Marshall-Genzer.
Paramount Skydance is offering $31 a share for Warner Bros. Discovery. It's an all-cash offer, with much of the cash coming from Oracle founder Larry Ellison, the father of Paramount CEO David Ellison. Netflix declined to raise its offer for Warner Bros., saying, quote, "...the deal is no longer financially attractive." Paramount's takeover of Warner Brothers still has to be approved by federal regulators. The Ellisons are close to President Trump, who said he would be involved in the outcome. Paramount would buy all of Warner Brothers, including CNN.
Why did Netflix decide not to compete for Warner Bros.?
Trump said late last year that, quote, it's imperative that CNN be sold. I'm Nancy Marshall-Genzer for Marketplace.
As this deal comes together, Marketplace's Kristen Schwab has more on the state of streaming.
Right now, Naveen Sarma, a senior analyst at S&P Global Ratings, says streaming is complicated.
And a mess. And very confusing.
There are a zillion content providers accessed a zillion different ways, and subscription prices are rising. Sarma says viewers are starting to pick and choose.
You're seeing consumers binge watch stuff that they find interesting and then drop that service for a short amount of time. You're seeing seasonality with the services that have the NFL.
There are too many players in the industry for all of them to make money. It's why Ross Benesch, a senior analyst at eMarketer, says more consolidation is coming.
Within the next two years, I think you're going to see more of these companies doing kind of what Sony has done.
Sony dropped the streaming side of its business, PlayStation View, to focus on licensing. We'll also likely see more subscription bundles and more companies, like Warner Brothers, get bought out. Benesch says this might make the user experience less clunky. It could also make it more expensive.
Let's say you have all of the Paramount and Warner shows on one platform now instead of two. That's nice for consumers. But when you have fewer companies, you give more monopolistic power to those who are still operating.
And mergers would give combined companies more power over the kinds of movies and shows that get made. I'm Kristen Schwab for Marketplace.
Uncertainty over tariffs is one reason government bonds have been popular this week. When bonds go up, interest rates come down with the 10-year rate below 4% this morning. The average 30-year mortgage rate has been parked at 6% even for two days now after falling below for the first time in three and a half years, this using Mortgage News Daily's calculation. Now, if companies are allowed to get money paid to the U.S. government on the subset of Trump tariffs now ruled illegal, will they pocket the refund and cheer up shareholders? FedEx has just promised to give any refunds back to its customers.
About half of high school applicants use artificial intelligence to pick where to apply to college, nearly double from last spring. This is from a survey out this week from the education company EAB. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes has more.
Some high school students use AI to kick off their college searches, saying, hey, I want to school with a good civil engineering program and an even better football team. And the AI will spit out a list of colleges. Other times, high schoolers are asking very targeted questions.
Hey, ChatGPT, I'm interested in this college. Can you go on Reddit and Instagram and tell me what the vibe on campus is like?
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