In Hollywood, the biggest story of the year, at least within the executive ranks has been Netflix offer to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. The bid was topped by a smaller company, with access to billions in credit from the founder of Oracle called Skydance Media run by Larry Ellison’s son David. Skydance Media bought Paramount Pictures, they won the battle to buy Netflix. What will they own?

In an article by John Koblin and Brooks Barnes of the New York Times News Service, subject to the regulatory bodies what will Skydance own?

Oracle – the company has a market value of $430 billions of which the founder Larry Ellison owns about $175 billion. The company works closely with major companies, including OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, on data centers.

TikTok – Oracle controls 15% of the joint venture. The other partners are Silver Lake, an investment company and MGX, an Emirati investment firm.

CBS – if you grew up watching TV and one time there were 3 networks – CBS, NBC and ABC.

HBO Max – one of the crown jewels of premium TV. If you are a fan of Game of Thrones or its spinoff A Knight of the 7 Kingdoms, many blockbusters have come from HBO, which means its library is very valuable.

Cable Networks – MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, HGTV, The Food Network, Discovery, TLC, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network, TBS and TNT and among the ones controlled now.

Parmount+ – all cable companies need streaming services, and this one has 79 million subscribers. Among the shows are Landman, Tulsa King, UFC and Star Trek.

CNN – the self-branded worldwide leader in news.

CBS News including 60 Minutes.

Warner Bros – after Disney, the second-biggest trover of movie properties. The franchises include: Harry Potter, Batman, the Lord of the Rings, Scooby Doo, the Flintstones, Buggs Bunny, more than 10,000 movies including Casablanca, the Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind

Parmount Pictures – Hollywood’s 4th largest studio with about $565 million in sales. Franchises include Mission: Impossible, Star Trek and Transformers, Top Gun, the Godfather and Grease.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, when you were reading the list, there is little doubt that you likely have both heard about or seen some of the shows. If you saw the shows, that makes the high possibility that you have goodwill to the show and are less interested in who owns the show but could see spin-offs. In a book by Michael Eisner of Disney, he said when he joined Disney it had a great library but that was it. The company did limited releases, and it turned out people wanted even more. The company delivers and at the moment there is likely no one better with synergies than Disney. Will the people of Skydance Paramount achieve the same thing? the market to grip the public is competitive.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.