Cable networks like CNN were once the key assets in the entertainment world. Now they have become toxic, which is why Comcast unloaded them last month and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) is now looking to do the same.

“Warners on Thursday said it was reorganizing its corporate structure into a global linear TV division, separate from from its streaming and studios division,” reports the far-left Hollywood Reporter. “The studio said it will begin the early steps towards the new corporate reorganization immediately and expects to complete the initiative by mid-2025.”

“In a sign of just how embattled the pay-TV business is, the move by WBD follows rival Comcast unveiling a plan to spin off its less lucrative cable networks away from its film and TV studio entertainment and parks businesses.”

Bog Iger, CEO of the Disney Grooming Syndicate, has already floated the idea of similar separation.

The report adds that WBD’s plan “appears to be spinning off all its linear [TV] assets into a separate holding company so that the core of the company can return to growth [because] the cable business [has] become a drag on earnings[.]”

The report points out that cable packages (or bundling) “have fast fallen out of favor with consumers who’ve spent instead on individual streaming services.”

“Last year, major pay-TV companies collectively lost about 5 million subscribers combined and Comcast alone lost 2 million subs[.]”

So what’s going on here?

Well, the good news is that Hollywood will have no choice but to produce TV products people actually want to watch. If they don’t, we won’t subscribe to their streaming outlets, and streaming is the future.

You see pay TV, or linear TV, or cable and satellite TV, were cash cows for decades. Why? Because the monopoly of cable forced us into bundles (or packages) that included dozens and dozens of networks we never watched. Nevertheless, because those networks were part of our cable package, we were still forced to pay for them. This is called a carriage fee, and these carriage fees have kept basement-rated networks like CNN, MSNBC, Comedy Central, and MTV artificially alive long past their fresh date.

You see, those networks could never survive on merit (i.e., revenues based on advertising rates based on viewership size). But by rigging the cable game so that tens of millions of households subsidize these outlets, they have been kept alive.

Streaming changed all of that. Merit has returned. Disney, Comcast, and WBD can’t do with their streaming services what they do with their shitty cable networks — force us to subsidize them. Streaming services must attract us with programming we actually want to watch.

So, millions are canceling their bloated cable bills and moving to streaming. The loss of those carriage fees, and we’re talking billions a month, is devastating Hollywood’s bottom line. And so, all those cable networks are now a drag on the stock price, which is also known as a toxic asset.

By splitting those networks away from the WBD Mothership, they won’t be a drag on the mothership’s stock price. Eventually, as the stock price on the spin-off company made up of dying cable networks diminishes, these assets will be bought and sold for parts and pieces until they are no more, or until CNNLOL becomes an add-on to a streaming service like Max — an add-on no one watches.

For those of you still dumb enough to subscribe to cable, here’s the best news: streaming offers enough free programming to blow your mind. Moving to streaming does not mean lining the pockets of Disney and Netflix. If you already pay for high-speed internet, all you need do is buy a Roku player (about $60), and you will find more free TV than you could ever watch. Pluto, FreeVee, Tubi, and RokuTV, just for starters. Sure, it’s got ads, but so does the cable TV you are paying through the nose for. This is 100 percent free – movies, TV shows, sports, true crime, news…

This move to streaming is a return to a business model where these left-wing entertainment companies must make content people actually want to watch. This is a cultural victory for Normal People.

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