Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Amazon, Google Probed by FTC Over Search Advertising Practices
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- 0:24Speaker 2: There was a headline today about how Amazon and Google
- 0:28Speaker 2: are being probed by the Federal Trade Commission on their
- 0:31Speaker 2: search advertising practices.
- 0:33Speaker 3: This is according to.
- 0:34Speaker 2: Bloomberg reporting, citing people who are familiar with the matter.
- 0:37Speaker 2: So we need to bring in Justin Treesi. He is
- 0:39Speaker 2: the anti trust litigation and policy analyst here for us
- 0:42Speaker 2: at Bloomberg Intelligence. Justin just walk us through what these
- 0:45Speaker 2: headlines mean to you when you look at it through
- 0:47Speaker 2: your anti trust lens.
- 0:50Speaker 4: Hi Scarlett, Happy Friday to you. So interestingly enough, here
- 0:53Speaker 4: in this case, it really looks like more of a
- 0:55Speaker 4: consumer protection investigation, not an anti trust kind of investigation.
- 1:00Speaker 4: So what I mean by that here is that we're
- 1:02Speaker 4: really looking at the pricing and the terms that perhaps
- 1:05Speaker 4: were set forth by Amazon and by Google in their
- 1:09Speaker 4: workings with advertisers, and when the or not that pricing
- 1:12Speaker 4: and those terms was misleading in any way, So a
- 1:14Speaker 4: different kind of series of facts here from what we're
- 1:16Speaker 4: seeing in the anti trust cases route advertising, with a
- 1:20Speaker 4: big one coming up in about a week the Remedies
- 1:22Speaker 4: trial and the Google ad Tech case starts in Virginia
- 1:25Speaker 4: very soon. More risk there, if you ask me. But
- 1:28Speaker 4: this one here really focused on those pricing policies. It
- 1:31Speaker 4: looks like at those companies and the remedies here are
- 1:34Speaker 4: probably nowhere near the kind of breakup risk that we
- 1:36Speaker 4: would see in a more antitrust aligned case.
- 1:39Speaker 5: That's what I was going to ask justin is whether
- 1:42Speaker 5: or not you know this makes the case to bolsters
- 1:44Speaker 5: the case to break up these tech giants. I also
- 1:47Speaker 5: want to make clear that these allegations are now different
- 1:51Speaker 5: from what both Google and Amazon are facing. They're facing
- 1:54Speaker 5: trials this month, right with separate lawsuits brought by federal agencies.
- 2:00Speaker 6: Yep, that's right.
- 2:01Speaker 4: So you're hit the nail on the head there too.
- 2:03Speaker 4: This is really more related to search issues and search advertising, which,
- 2:07Speaker 4: interestingly enough, that's what we just had that huge remedies
- 2:10Speaker 4: ruling on in the Google search case, right. And in
- 2:13Speaker 4: that case, there was a lot of discussion in the
- 2:15Speaker 4: remedies about increasing transparency and pricing for the text based
- 2:20Speaker 4: search ads, right, So one could actually say a lot
- 2:23Speaker 4: of those remedies are already on their way to being
- 2:25Speaker 4: implemented as part of that ruling Number one. Number two, Yeah, absolutely,
- 2:29Speaker 4: the Google case that's pending, that's about open web advertising
- 2:32Speaker 4: on websites, you know, little ads you see when you
- 2:35Speaker 4: might go to Bloomberg dot com or CNN dot com
- 2:37Speaker 4: for example, that pop up on the side, separated apart
- 2:40Speaker 4: from search ads. And then the Amazon trial coming up
- 2:42Speaker 4: this month that's about Amazon Prime terms, right, and whether
- 2:46Speaker 4: or not there was misleading kind of behavior and how
- 2:48Speaker 4: that was sold to consumers.
- 2:50Speaker 2: We should note that the FDC and Google declined to
- 2:53Speaker 2: comment on our reporting in Amazon did not respond to
- 2:56Speaker 2: requests for comment. So justin when you look at all
- 2:59Speaker 2: of this, what does this mean in terms of how
- 3:02Speaker 2: much of an overhang this will be for the companies?
- 3:04Speaker 2: Is this something that's going to be a month long
- 3:06Speaker 2: investigation or months long maybe years long investigation?
- 3:11Speaker 7: Right?
- 3:11Speaker 4: And I think the latter definitely scarlet right, So I
- 3:14Speaker 4: think just now you know, and great reporting by the way,
- 3:17Speaker 4: as usual by our colleagues Leahoniland and Josh Cisco over
- 3:20Speaker 4: at Bloomberg News. But I would say, you know, we're
- 3:22Speaker 4: really early on here, I think, is the story if
- 3:25Speaker 4: they're just starting to look into these these allegations, These
- 3:28Speaker 4: things can take years absolutely to pan out. A lot
- 3:31Speaker 4: of times there's no case that's even broad at the
- 3:33Speaker 4: end of them. It's really about ascertaining the facts, figuring
- 3:37Speaker 4: out what, if anything, happened, and moving on from there.
- 3:40Speaker 4: So I don't think we'll see any more announcements from
- 3:42Speaker 4: the FTC about how this is proceeding either. Typically all
- 3:45Speaker 4: of this is confidential, so as it moves forward, we
- 3:48Speaker 4: may or may not see updates that come out, you know,
- 3:51Speaker 4: in different ways about the case. But it's a long
- 3:53Speaker 4: term risk absolutely.
- 3:56Speaker 5: Is this just another example though, of how the Trump
- 3:59Speaker 5: administration is deal with big tech? Do you think justin.
- 4:03Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I find this a little interesting too, right,
- 4:05Speaker 4: So I think, you know, you look back to the
- 4:07Speaker 4: AI Action Plan that came out earlier in the summer,
- 4:10Speaker 4: and you know, in that plan language the White House said, hey, FTC,
- 4:15Speaker 4: stay away from investigations that might inhibit the growth of
- 4:18Speaker 4: AI in any way. So that leads me to believe,
- 4:21Speaker 4: you know, are we looking to areas like advertising as
- 4:23Speaker 4: a car veut from that messaging, right, are we looking
- 4:26Speaker 4: to different areas of tech there there might be a
- 4:28Speaker 4: problem that falls out of that.
- 4:30Speaker 6: Ambit of AI.
- 4:31Speaker 4: But it seems like, you know, and there is that
- 4:34Speaker 4: whiplash right where the White House might have one statement
- 4:37Speaker 4: on things and there might be a visit to the
- 4:39Speaker 4: White House right by certain CEOs on the other hand,
- 4:42Speaker 4: But then you said the FTC file pursuing an investigation
- 4:45Speaker 4: like this, So there certainly is a back and forth.
- 4:48Speaker 4: But I would say if it doesn't fall within the
- 4:50Speaker 4: ambit of AI, there's still is a possibility and some
- 4:52Speaker 4: risk that things could be subject to investigations.
- 4:55Speaker 2: Okay, so very much moving goalposts and a TBD kind
- 4:59Speaker 2: of scenario. Justin you and Jennifer Ree, who's our senior
- 5:03Speaker 2: litigation analysts, have also done some research on Live Nation
- 5:06Speaker 2: and how its dominance in events is at risk because
- 5:11Speaker 2: of a lawsuit. And this is a lawsuit that will
- 5:14Speaker 2: is scheduled to lead to an antitrust jury trial that
- 5:17Speaker 2: will begin I think in the first quarter.
- 5:20Speaker 3: Just walk us through what we'd need to know there.
- 5:22Speaker 4: Yeah, So alter for Jennifer on the nuts and bolt
- 5:25Speaker 4: of that particular case, she's been following from the start,
- 5:27Speaker 4: she's really been knee deep in that litigation. But what
- 5:29Speaker 4: I will say is that it's not just the courts
- 5:31Speaker 4: we're looking at here from the aspect of ticketing right
- 5:34Speaker 4: Really recently, we've seen legislation introduced at the federal and
- 5:37Speaker 4: state levels where we're looking at the secondary marketplace for
- 5:40Speaker 4: ticketing too, and what's happening there things like increased price
- 5:44Speaker 4: price transparency for consumers when they're going through that ticket
- 5:47Speaker 4: purchasing process, a whole host of issues there, but perhaps
- 5:50Speaker 4: capping the fees that are allowed on the secondary sale
- 5:53Speaker 4: of tickets. So there's a lot happening in that particular area.
- 5:56Speaker 4: You're right, there is a monopolization suit that precedes next spring,
- 5:59Speaker 4: and I think that's going to be a really you know,
- 6:01Speaker 4: bet the company kind of litigation in many ways for
- 6:03Speaker 4: Live Nation. But there also is this kind of political
- 6:06Speaker 4: risk that's out there too, really more focused, I would say,
- 6:08Speaker 4: on those secondary resale tickets, ticket resellers, you know what, I'm.
- 6:12Speaker 5: Curious, So have consumers really felt the difference yet when
- 6:14Speaker 5: it comes to ticketing and pricing regarding Live Nation. I mean,
- 6:18Speaker 5: I know they're sort of embroiled in a lot of a.
- 6:20Speaker 3: Lot of lawsuits.
- 6:20Speaker 4: Actually, sure, I'd say probably not yet, right. I think
- 6:25Speaker 4: we saw some activity around a class action case just
- 6:27Speaker 4: really recently there. But you know, the FTC's rule mandating
- 6:31Speaker 4: these price transparency issues for consumers when they're in that
- 6:34Speaker 4: kind of ticket prison purchasing process that just wanted to
- 6:37Speaker 4: effect a few months ago, right, So, really it's a
- 6:40Speaker 4: trickle out, trickle down here, a slow moving kind of
- 6:42Speaker 4: issue here with politics and with litigation, and of course,
- 6:46Speaker 4: you know, we haven't even gotten to the liability phase
- 6:48Speaker 4: of that Live Nation trial, much less remedies that would
- 6:51Speaker 4: be imposed if there were a finding of liability in
- 6:53Speaker 4: that case. Right, So, I think we're at the beginning
- 6:55Speaker 4: of a lot of activity, but certainly no real outcomes
- 6:59Speaker 4: are developing just yet.
- 7:00Speaker 2: I mean, I'm a very imperfect example of you know
- 7:04Speaker 2: what you see when you actually try to buy tickets,
- 7:06Speaker 2: But I've noticed when I do try to buy tickets
- 7:08Speaker 2: on secondary markets, there's a lot more text about how
- 7:11Speaker 2: this is. You know, every single fee included, so we're
- 7:14Speaker 2: not going to add anything more to your final price tag.
- 7:17Speaker 2: And that's something that's only really started to roll out,
- 7:19Speaker 2: I would see in the last couple of months.
- 7:21Speaker 4: Yep, you're right, and that's the FTC rule right there
- 7:24Speaker 4: in play right. You're seeing them with ticketing applications. We're
- 7:26Speaker 4: also seeing that in kind of travel travel websites as well,
- 7:29Speaker 4: right where you kind of get to the checkout page
- 7:31Speaker 4: and wait a minute, there's all these fees for things
- 7:33Speaker 4: like baggage that maybe you didn't know about upfront when
- 7:35Speaker 4: you saw the fairs. So that's kind of how those
- 7:37Speaker 4: are rolling out there too. And i'd say to your point,
- 7:40Speaker 4: that's really the impact you've had so far on the consumer.
- 7:43Speaker 4: More likely yet to come.
- 7:45Speaker 2: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 7:52Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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- 8:06Speaker 5: Lots of news in tech, Adobe's earnings beat open AI
- 8:11Speaker 5: closer to becoming a for profit company. Want to break
- 8:14Speaker 5: some of this down now with any rog Rana Bloomberg
- 8:16Speaker 5: Intelligence technology analysts coming to us from our Chicago bureau.
- 8:19Speaker 5: So a rog, let's break down Adobe first, because I
- 8:23Speaker 5: know it was sort of the step child of the
- 8:25Speaker 5: AI craze for a long time. But I think with
- 8:27Speaker 5: this earnings report it sort of has Wall Street rethinking.
- 8:30Speaker 6: That, Yeah, I know, it's still the stepchild. It's still
- 8:33Speaker 6: not up.
- 8:34Speaker 7: I mean you could see that, you know, imagine what
- 8:36Speaker 7: would have happened even if they would have missed the numbers.
- 8:38Speaker 6: So this is definitely the one that.
- 8:40Speaker 7: Has the biggest AI cloud in terms of being disrupted.
- 8:44Speaker 7: And it's going to take some multiple quarters like this
- 8:47Speaker 7: for people to get comfortable with the story.
- 8:49Speaker 6: I think last night they showed.
- 8:50Speaker 7: Really good numbers, really good AI adoption, but they really
- 8:53Speaker 7: have to do continue to do that for a long
- 8:55Speaker 7: period of time.
- 8:56Speaker 3: I think you hit it on the hit the nail
- 8:58Speaker 3: on the head.
- 8:59Speaker 2: That's going to take multiple quarters of this to convince
- 9:02Speaker 2: Wall Street that this is a story where Adobe has
- 9:04Speaker 2: figured out AI and how to monetize off of it.
- 9:08Speaker 2: Up until this point, and until very recently, it feels
- 9:11Speaker 2: like investors were souring on app software makers. Why is
- 9:14Speaker 2: that and how does Adobe's results start to push back
- 9:17Speaker 2: against that idea?
- 9:19Speaker 7: See there again that Halo is not going to again
- 9:22Speaker 7: go for multiple quarters. The concept is very simple because
- 9:25Speaker 7: of large language models, you can spin up a software
- 9:28Speaker 7: very quickly, which means if you do not, you don't
- 9:31Speaker 7: need to go to app software vendors. You know, whether
- 9:34Speaker 7: it's be salesforce, workday, or any any function that you're
- 9:37Speaker 7: looking at where your large language model can do for it.
- 9:40Speaker 7: We think it's a bit false narrative over there, but
- 9:43Speaker 7: it's going to take some time again for people to
- 9:45Speaker 7: get comfortable. We think it is not going to be
- 9:47Speaker 7: easy to get rid of the system of record for finance,
- 9:51Speaker 7: for HR for sales. People are not just going to
- 9:54Speaker 7: get rid of those software and just put in a
- 9:57Speaker 7: prompt and let you know, let somebody take care of it.
- 9:59Speaker 7: So but again, the software industry is declining right now.
- 10:02Speaker 7: That is not tied to AI. But that has to
- 10:05Speaker 7: do with macro spending being bad, the overall economy being
- 10:08Speaker 7: bad when it comes to enterprise IT spending. So I
- 10:11Speaker 7: think those are the two opposing factors that are happening there. Oracle,
- 10:16Speaker 7: I mean Adobe's results do help them a little bit,
- 10:19Speaker 7: but I think it's going to be multiple years before
- 10:21Speaker 7: we get comfortable with that.
- 10:22Speaker 5: And Eric, I want to switch gears and talk a
- 10:24Speaker 5: little open AI because we know the company is trying
- 10:26Speaker 5: to move closer to becoming a for profit company. We
- 10:30Speaker 5: know that it is, you know, facing criticism from Elon Musk,
- 10:34Speaker 5: who's accusing the company of defrauding investors about its commitment
- 10:37Speaker 5: to its charitable mission. Just tell us how this might work,
- 10:40Speaker 5: How might this conversion work?
- 10:43Speaker 7: Yeah, so again we don't have any details of what happened,
- 10:45Speaker 7: but the only good thing is that Microsoft and Opening
- 10:48Speaker 7: I have in principle agreed that they will move forward
- 10:51Speaker 7: with this. The question, you know, for us, the biggest
- 10:54Speaker 7: thing is will Microsoft still have access to open aiyes,
- 10:58Speaker 7: you know, top of the line mode models or not.
- 11:00Speaker 6: So that's the biggest thing.
- 11:02Speaker 7: And second, what kind of revenue shared they will have
- 11:05Speaker 7: with Microsoft on the inferencing side, so when people are
- 11:08Speaker 7: using more chat GPT, whether that operation will run on
- 11:12Speaker 7: Microsoft Cloud or not. So those are the things if
- 11:15Speaker 7: and we think Microsoft will be willing to give some
- 11:18Speaker 7: equity for these kinds of deals for these two factors,
- 11:22Speaker 7: and you know that would be in the best interest
- 11:24Speaker 7: of Microsoft sharedholders.
- 11:26Speaker 2: Let me ask you presently as that John had mentioned,
- 11:28Speaker 2: which is about Apple delaying the launch of its new
- 11:31Speaker 2: iPhone Air in mainland China. These are regulatory approval issues
- 11:34Speaker 2: that are holding that up. Is that on the side
- 11:37Speaker 2: of the US or on the side of China. And
- 11:39Speaker 2: how big of a knock is this for on Apple's
- 11:42Speaker 2: revenue line.
- 11:44Speaker 7: Yeah, it sounds like it's more from the you know,
- 11:46Speaker 7: the China side of it. Now, the big question is
- 11:49Speaker 7: what happens is the iPhone's going to be available, you know,
- 11:52Speaker 7: a week from now, so from September nineteenth to October
- 11:56Speaker 7: you know thirty first is you could say, a few
- 11:59Speaker 7: days of revenue recognition of the newest model that you
- 12:02Speaker 7: get in the current quarter. Most likely that gets pushed
- 12:05Speaker 7: out in the next quarter. So that's the only difference
- 12:07Speaker 7: it's going to have. I know, it's a you know
- 12:09Speaker 7: for the Chinese users who are looking forward to this phone,
- 12:12Speaker 7: they may not get it in the next ten to
- 12:15Speaker 7: fifteen days, but you know, I don't think it's going
- 12:17Speaker 7: to be longer before they'll be able to get.
- 12:19Speaker 5: That in the about forty five seconds we have left.
- 12:24Speaker 5: Just want to get your take on Microsoft teams basically
- 12:27Speaker 5: avoiding a hefty fine with the EU. Bring us up
- 12:30Speaker 5: to speed on that.
- 12:32Speaker 7: Yeah, So this has been a case that's been around
- 12:34Speaker 7: for a while, and the question is to use aggreg
- 12:36Speaker 7: disaggregate teams versus Slack. So Microsoft has to do it.
- 12:39Speaker 7: There's always a tying aspect of Microsoft products. It bundles
- 12:44Speaker 7: in these things, and competitors think, you know, that's an
- 12:46Speaker 7: unfair advantage for them, and you know they have to
- 12:48Speaker 7: do with they're frankly speaking otherwise. You know this is
- 12:50Speaker 7: a you know, the lawsuits otherwise that they will face
- 12:53Speaker 7: because of it.
- 12:55Speaker 3: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 13:02Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 13:05Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am heasterne on Apple, Cocklay and Android
- 13:09Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
- 13:12Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 13:16Speaker 5: I'm Alexis Kristoffers along with Scarlett Foo and Paramount sky
- 13:20Speaker 5: Dance Boy wasting no time when it comes to making
- 13:23Speaker 5: acquisitions right The Hollywood Studio taken over just last month
- 13:26Speaker 5: by the independent filmmaker David Ellison, now reportedly preparing a
- 13:30Speaker 5: bid for Warner Brothers. Discovery and Wall Street seems to
- 13:35Speaker 5: like the news because Warner Brothers up about fourteen percent
- 13:38Speaker 5: right now. We've even got Paramount sky Dance on the
- 13:41Speaker 5: plus side by nearly three percent. Let's break it down
- 13:44Speaker 5: with Geetha Ranganathan Bloomberg, intelligence analyst on US Media. He's
- 13:48Speaker 5: watching it all for us from his perch in Princeton, GI.
- 13:52Speaker 5: The great to see you. I guess Bloomberg was the
- 13:54Speaker 5: first to report this, but we should make clear no
- 13:57Speaker 5: official offer made yet. So what do we know?
- 14:02Speaker 8: Yeah, so what we know right now, alexis is that
- 14:05Speaker 8: Paramount is definitely interested in making a bid for Warner
- 14:09Speaker 8: Brothers Discovery. And what's interesting. I mean, you pointed out
- 14:12Speaker 8: the timing. That's definitely a very very critical aspect here.
- 14:15Speaker 8: The second thing that's very interesting about this offer is
- 14:18Speaker 8: that it's going to be for the entire company.
- 14:21Speaker 4: Now.
- 14:21Speaker 8: The reason I bring that up is because Warner Brothers
- 14:23Speaker 8: Discovery was actually planning to split off its different assets. So,
- 14:28Speaker 8: you know, the company owns TV networks like a CNN,
- 14:32Speaker 8: a TVs at TNT. They also own one of you know,
- 14:35Speaker 8: the biggest Hollywood movie and TV studios, and of course
- 14:39Speaker 8: they have their you know, iconic HBO Max streaming platform.
- 14:43Speaker 8: So there's a whole you know, portfolio of different assets there,
- 14:46Speaker 8: and they were planning to separate out the TV assets
- 14:49Speaker 8: which have been challenged for the past few years by
- 14:52Speaker 8: cord cutting, and separate that out from the studio and
- 14:55Speaker 8: the streaming part of the business. And so really what
- 14:58Speaker 8: we were kind of thinking was that there would be
- 14:59Speaker 8: a lot of and interest, a lot of appetite for
- 15:02Speaker 8: the studio and streaming portion of the business, just given that,
- 15:05Speaker 8: you know, those are kind of the crown jewels of
- 15:07Speaker 8: the business, if you will. But you know, having Paramount
- 15:11Speaker 8: kind of come in for the entire company is obviously
- 15:13Speaker 8: a little bit of a surprise. There's no deal or
- 15:17Speaker 8: dollar value yet, though, Alexis and.
- 15:19Speaker 5: You are saying Etha that this, if it were to happen,
- 15:22Speaker 5: would be a cash offer, like an all cash offer.
- 15:26Speaker 8: That is what has been reported. It would be a
- 15:28Speaker 8: majority cash offering for all of Warner Brothers Discovery.
- 15:32Speaker 5: So I'm wondering if if Paramount Skydance is interested in
- 15:36Speaker 5: all of Warner Brothers Discovery, what might regulators have to
- 15:39Speaker 5: say about that.
- 15:42Speaker 8: Yeah, normally it would have been a problem. I think,
- 15:45Speaker 8: you know, you do have two of the biggest studios
- 15:48Speaker 8: kind of combining it will become a top studio with
- 15:51Speaker 8: about a twenty five percent box office share, Not that
- 15:54Speaker 8: such deals haven't gone through, you know, the regulatory process before.
- 15:59Speaker 8: So if you just remember if years ago Disney bought
- 16:01Speaker 8: the Fox studio that gave them about a twenty five
- 16:04Speaker 8: twenty six percent share of the box office. So it
- 16:06Speaker 8: has been done. But I think what gives us more
- 16:09Speaker 8: confidence in the whole regulatory process here is that David
- 16:14Speaker 8: Ellison and you know, the family, the whole Sky Dance
- 16:16Speaker 8: A team just went through this whole approval process for
- 16:21Speaker 8: the Paramount merger with the Trump administration just about a
- 16:24Speaker 8: month ago, so they obviously know their way around around
- 16:27Speaker 8: the system. They know how to navigate all of the
- 16:29Speaker 8: different challenges that come with, you know, a deal of
- 16:32Speaker 8: this size. So I think that gives us plenty of confidence.
- 16:36Speaker 8: And the other thing that I would mention is that
- 16:37Speaker 8: there is no broadcast there's no combination of broadcast assets,
- 16:40Speaker 8: So combining two broadcast networks like a CBS or an
- 16:43Speaker 8: NBC that would be problematic. In this case, there is
- 16:46Speaker 8: no broadcast asset from Warner Brothers, Discovery.
- 16:49Speaker 5: Good good point, Githa. So I'm just wondering about the
- 16:52Speaker 5: synergies here bouncing off of that, and you know, would
- 16:56Speaker 5: there be a fair amount of overlap in the center
- 17:00Speaker 5: that we may see a bunch of layoffs if and
- 17:03Speaker 5: when this deal happens.
- 17:05Speaker 8: Well, that is absolutely bound to happen. So we were
- 17:08Speaker 8: actually already seeing that at both companies separately. So remember
- 17:11Speaker 8: Warner Brothers Discovery is actually a combination of Warner Brothers
- 17:14Speaker 8: and Discovery, and they had like mentioned or they had
- 17:17Speaker 8: announced a lot of synergies and a lot of cost
- 17:19Speaker 8: savings at the time that they you know, merged those
- 17:22Speaker 8: two companies. We're going to see the same thing with
- 17:24Speaker 8: Paramount and sky Dance. And now when you kind of
- 17:26Speaker 8: see this mega merger, there absolutely is going to be
- 17:29Speaker 8: a ton of layoffs just kind of given you know,
- 17:31Speaker 8: the duplicative systems in place here. You know, you're talking
- 17:35Speaker 8: about a studio business. Again, a lot of positions there
- 17:37Speaker 8: can be eliminated, you know, the streaming platforms, the TV networks.
- 17:41Speaker 8: You're going to have multiple teams kind of performing the
- 17:43Speaker 8: same functions. So, yes, we do project something like about
- 17:47Speaker 8: four or five billion dollars in potential cost savings. A
- 17:51Speaker 8: lot of those, of course would be you know, with
- 17:55Speaker 8: the elimination of jobs. So the Hollywood unions definitely would
- 17:58Speaker 8: not be happy here.
- 17:59Speaker 5: Yeah, I bet, and I just want to ask you
- 18:01Speaker 5: a little bit about the market reaction we're seeing. Again, again,
- 18:04Speaker 5: no deal has been made. This is Bloomberg reporting out
- 18:07Speaker 5: there that's actually moving these stocks today. Warner Brothers Discovery
- 18:11Speaker 5: up about fourteen percent, but we also got Paramount sky
- 18:14Speaker 5: Dance up about three percent. Usually the acquirer comes under
- 18:17Speaker 5: a little bit of pressure in the thirty seconds I have.
- 18:20Speaker 5: Why do you think we're seeing both stocks higher?
- 18:23Speaker 8: Yeah, that's a really interesting point you bring up, Alexis.
- 18:25Speaker 8: The reason we're seeing Paramount trade higher is because remember
- 18:28Speaker 8: this is a subscale streamer, so they have only about
- 18:30Speaker 8: seventy five million streaming subscribers right now. Merging with Warner
- 18:34Speaker 8: Brothers Discovery really kind of puts them on the map
- 18:37Speaker 8: along with Netflix and Disney makes them a really formidable player.
- 18:41Speaker 8: And so this is why we're kind of seeing a
- 18:42Speaker 8: lot of enthusiasm for this bid.
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