Welcome Back to Wild Tortoise

On Mickey Mouse, Warner Bros. Discovery, Yellowstone, and Prince Harry

Hi

I’m back, but with something a little different. Over the past year or so, I’ve found myself buried in media industry news and analysis. I’ve always been interested in media & entertainment, but I’ve developed a strong interest in what some would call the Business of Content:

• The individual pieces of media we consume and the marketplace for it: distributors and consumers; studios and streamers; talent and audience; linear television and print media; books and podcasts; live events and art fairs; fashion weeks and festivals.

As a challenge for myself this year, I’ll be back on here every week with my favorite reads on the business, accompanied with thoughts and analysis.

💡 Mickey Mouse is for sale (kind of); Bloomberg wants WSJ and The Post; Zaslav & the new Warner Bros. Discovery; The Battle for the Soul of CNN; and Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone

Courtesy of MoMA

1. Mickey Mouse Might Go On the Market

   • Steamboat Willie, the 1928 film which introduced Mickey Mouse to the world, will lose copyright protections at the end of this year. You may think this is a weird one to start with, but Mickey Mouse sits at the core of a historic and highly profitable American brand. Will we see Mickey spinoffs from other companies? Probably not. Disney is notoriously litigious, once charging an elementary school $250 for showing The Lion King at a PTA fundraiser.

2. Bloomberg is Interested in buying The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post

   • These days it seems that every media company has a billionaire behind it. This story centers potential negotiations with Rupert Murdoch and Jeff Bezos, in pursuit of creating a financial and enterprise news behemoth. Either acquisition could be leveraged to increase subscriber numbers to Bloomberg Terminal, the real-time financial news service of Bloomberg LP.

3. David Zaslav is the Media Czar of the Future

   • The CEO of the newly combined Warner Bros. Discovery merger has made it his mission to cut $3 billion across brands like HBO, CNN, and Warner Bros. This is in response to Wall Street (finally) turning its back on growth at all costs in favor of profitability. Already, Zaslav has cut nearly-finished film projects like Batgirl; shut down CNN+; gut Cartoon Network; and removed content from HBOMax for licensing. The story of WBD will either be the greatest winner-takes-all media story or a boogeyman for future media mergers.

4. Stephen Colbert told Chris Licht not to do it

   • Chris Licht, the new CEO of CNN, has become emblematic of a new CNN directive — to move the network towards a centrist viewpoint. While the left-leaning, anti-Trump rhetoric of the network’s last six years, drove over a billion dollars in revenue, the new leadership (including D. Zaslav) is willing to take on risk in order to better service the public. “I want CNN to be essential to society,” Licht said. “If you’re essential then the revenue will follow.” If CNN succeeds, it will become the ultimate business case for news without editorialization.

5. The appeal of Yellowstone and why it matters

   • I wanted to bring attention to this November profile on Taylor Sheridan, the mega-creator, writer, & director of Yellowstone and its multiple spinoffs. The latest season of Yellowstone was the most-watched show on television and it is one of the few drama series that can still compete with professional sporting events in terms of viewership. Despite the data, I feel like I still don’t hear enough about it in the zeitgeist. This article compares Yellowstone’s snub to the critical acclaim of Succession, its buttoned-up, east coast contemporary. “Both have at their core an aging, raging, tyrannical patriarch trying to hold on to an empire (a ranch in one case, a media conglomerate in the other), threatened by a changing world he doesn’t like or understand while trying to fend off his own heirs.”

🔮 Quick Hits:

• The Wall Street Journal did an overview of the recent coup at Disney: the war of the Bobs and how Bob Iger ended up on top. This is recommended reading as we head into 2023.

• Youtube buys rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, scoring a touchdown against linear television networks.

• Prince Harry will speak with Anderson Cooper on 60 minutes this Sunday. I found the Meghan & Harry doc to be boring (too much of a lovefest), but this interview seems like it will be a bit juicier.

• The President’s daughter-turned-Today Show anchor Jenna Bush Hager is creating the next Reese’s Book Club. I would not be surprised if the ‘book club phenomenon’ becomes more of an industry trend.

• CNN didn’t let Anderson or Andy get drunk on New Years Eve, prompting widespread complaints on Twitter….here is my favorite outtake from that night.

Please let me know what else you want me to cover :)