CEO David Zaslav announced the move today in a larger discussion about the company’s plan to report value from its linear TV business separately from its streaming and studios division, per TheWrap. The frequent movie-shelver is “always looking at shareholder value,” as we know, and in his view, this will “help us get fair value.” If that means a more robust network TV landscape, this writer is all for it.
The company’s linear TV division does need a boost. As TheWrap reports, continual cord cutting saw the department’s profits decline 13% to $1.92 billion, and its revenues drop 5% to $4.77 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024. Instead of offloading its 29 cable channels like Comcast did in November, WBD is instead sharing its (relative) wealth. Zaslav didn’t specify which specific shows will do double duty, but it seems intuitive that network-adjacent fare like The Pitt would do well on the medium that fundamentally inspired it.
This isn’t the first time WBD has moved its once incredibly proprietary content around. The company previously licensed some of its titles to competitors—you can now watch Insecure on Netflix, True Blood on Hulu, and Westworld on The Roku Channel. (You can’t even watch Westworld on HBO or Max proper anymore, but that’s a rant for another time.) This year, the company also began quietly uploading full moves from its back catalogue to YouTube. There’s a whole playlist of them now, if you want to do an ad-supported double feature after watching The Last Of Us or whatever else ends up on TNT.
