Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) and Charter Communications (CHTR) have reached a multi-year distribution deal that will include separate Max and Discovery+ tiers for Charter customers. Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Alexandra Canal digs into the details of the deal and what it means for Warner Bros. Discovery after losing its bid for NBA broadcast rights in July.
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This post was written by Melanie Riehl
Video Transcript
All right, Warner Brothers, Discovery and Charter Communications reaching a new multi year year distribution deal which will include separate Max and Discovery plus years for charter customers are very own.
Alexandra Canal joining us now with more.
Hi, so this is a deal that’s very similar to the deal that charter struck with Disney last year that really set the groundwork for what these types of deals will look like in this new streaming era.
And that’s exactly what this hinges on access to those streaming tears.
Charter wants to provide its 13 million customers the ability to have some of those streaming options without having to pay them as an add on.
They want that included in the cable bundle.
And that’s exactly the case here.
Charter subs will receive both max and Discovery plus for no additional cost.
Now, one of the reasons why we see the stocks so much up 8% right now yesterday closed up more than 10% is because a lot of analysts were concerned that with the loss of the MB A rights, the carriage fees that Warner Brothers receives would be less.
So to back it up here, carriage fees are the fees that pay TV providers paid to the owners of these network channels.
So think WBD think Disney think paramount in order to carry those channels.
So with the laws of the NBA, you think that TNT, which currently is the channel where you can watch those NBA games, it wouldn’t be really a smart move for these P TV providers to pay a lot of money to that channel.
But according to the Wall Street Journal, those fees have remained flat.
So that’s a huge win.
They didn’t go down and, and sense and that’s why we’re seeing such a reaction in the stock price.
And you know, Warner Brothers discovery, it’s been dealing with a lot of issues, especially when it relates to its linear networks.
We saw that big cable right down in the latest earnings.
So this is an encouraging sign that perhaps, you know, these, all these different players within the media ecosystem can play, play nice and get along what’s next for TNT then because I don’t know about you guys.
But the only time that has been on in my vicinity is if there is a basketball game on TV.
So I just worry about what that means for them, completely anecdotal data there.
But yeah, what discovery is, they, they’re trying to beef up their other types of sports networks or other types of sports rights.
They’re trying to grab whatever games they can, college football to say, look this is something that you can watch.
I will say, I think the focus here is going to be on the streaming side and making sure that sports is accessible on the max platform, which they, they currently are experimenting with and doing.
We have venue sports, which is that joint venture with Disney and uh Fox supposedly coming out at some point, there’s that preliminary injunction, we’ll see if that ever gets off the ground.
But sports is certainly a big part of Warner Brothers strategy.
Even though they lost the NBA.
We’ll see if they can pick things back up with some of these other leagues.
So, sounds like it might be harder for you to find the game.
I know, but they’ll be there somewhere.
That’s good for me.
I mean, I don’t want to be on, it’s just not badly mad.
You’re really trying to watch those NBA.