Since the Warner Bros. Discovery merger in 2022, CEO David Zaslav has tried to persuade Wall Street that combining the Discovery and HBO Max streaming services would boost subscribers and engagement while reducing churn.
Two years later, that strategy proven insufficient for the company to catch up to the scale of streaming rivals Netflix and Disney+. And, like its other non-Netflix competitors, WBD has yet to turn a streaming profit over multiple quarters.
Now, six years after AT&T acquired Warners and two years after AT&T sold WarnerMedia to Discovery to create Warner Bros. Discovery, the company has once again become the subject of M&A speculation: Zaslav is reportedly weighing whether to split the movie studio and direct-to-consumer business into a standalone company from its linear television networks.