![]() We continue to offer a free 2-week trial of WrapPRO. If you’ve been wanting to check out our full coverage, now’s the time.Greetings!Comcast today posted third-quarter results that saw continued bleeding in its core broadband and video subscribers. But the most telling figure comes from its Peacock streaming service. The company made strides in stemming its losses, narrowing them to $217 million vs. $436 million a year ago, but it showed no growth with its subscriber base at 41 million. The lack of growth at Peacock, when it's already well behind the other major streamers, makes the argument for why it makes sense for Comcast to bid for Warner Bros. Discovery's studio and streaming assets. Combining HBO Max's base, which represents the vast majority of WBD's total of 125.7 million streaming subscribers (WBD reports results a week from today), with Peacock would give it the kind of scale it needs to better compete with the other major streamers. For comparison, Netflix's last disclosed subscriber figure in January was over 300 million. Peacock is obviously trying to find scale elsewhere, including through a bundling partnership with Apple TV that launched earlier this month. Beyond scale from a user perspective, bringing together HBO Max's vast library of content with Peacock would also make for a more compelling offering, especially as subscribers have gotten more discriminating about the services they pay for. Comcast President Mike Cavanagh opened the door to a possible bid, noting interest in "streaming assets and studios assets," while also acknowledging the "very high" bar for the company to pursue any deals. While a deal makes a lot of sense, as Lucas Manfredi noted in his analysis last week, Comcast faces a number of challenges that make closing a deal difficult, including the "Trump" factor. Two other companies bandied about as candidates also happened to report earnings today. Apple, which posted a net profit of $27.5 billion, and Amazon, which reported net income of $2.1 billion and revenue of $180.2 billion on the heels of laying off 14,000 employees. With numbers like that, you can see why they're constantly rumored to be in the mix for WBD. They could certainly afford to make the acquisition. Roger Cheng
Comcast's Cavanagh took the typical conservative tone when fielding questions about a possible bid for Warner Bros. Discovery — or at least part of it...
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