The bloated Discovery which will inherit the merged company's debt gets a 20% stake in Warner Bros. this wouldn't give it control but rather improve its balance sheet. With the merged company's CFO taking Discovery by the horns several changes await Cartoon Network.
Continued content investment under Cartoon Network Studios/Warner Bros. Animation
If you look at Cartoon Network back in the 90s to early 2010s, it had always had a pipeline of animation from Ben 10, The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy and Secret Saturday. They even had an ongoing slate of content from Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo and Tom And Jerry.
Now consumers don't get much Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo and Tom And Jerry, and to top it off Warner Bros. Discovery is only interested in capitalization. They've got Batman: Caped Crusader on Amazon Prime Video followed by The Wonderfully Weird World Of Gumball on Hulu.
Before consumers would have Cartoon Network and HBO Max both of which are owned by Warner Bros. Discovery for all this content. The push to have these shows on multiple platforms has caused division amongst viewers, not everyone that's subscribed to HBO Max has or can afford Hulu.
The future of shows like CN To The Rescue
Warner Bros. Discovery had been curating short form content within some of the markets Cartoon Network operates particularly Africa and these include CN To The Rescue, My Cartoon Friend and Cartoon Network Dance Challenge. Does that stop once Cartoon Network goes to Discovery perhaps?
Discovery will be handling all the debt and with the merged company's chief financial officer (CFO) getting a front seat (CEO) within this company. One can only assume the next course of action post the split would be content reduction.
The only reason Cartoon Network in Africa has all that local content and is what it is today is due to Warner Bros. Discovery Global will most likely follow a similar regime as seen with Amazon Prime Video in Africa and soon Paramount Global by halting their local operations.
The viability of Warner's linear assets under Discovery
Aside from Cartoon Network, Discovery Global would also be distributing Cartoonito and Boing in Africa. The fear for some is whether Discovery would have enough content to accommodate these brands cause the likely scenario would be closing or selling some channels.
Discovery Global while in the kids space in the US through Discovery Family has very minimal presence and Cartoon Network may not really fit preposition as they're a factual brand above everything else. If they are retaining Cartoon Network and Cartoonito they could just alter the lineup.
As mentioned, we are expecting them to close local operations, reduce their reliance on Warner Bros (affecting shows like Teen Titans GO! and Batwheels) and priorities on third party shows.
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