TOM GIOVANETTI: The Free-Market Case For A Hollywood Merger As Paramount Fights Big Tech

It looks like some much-needed changes are coming to the media streaming marketplace, and that’s great news for consumers.

Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns over 60 different entertainment brands including HBO, CNN, Warner Bros., the DC Comics Universe, and channels like TBS, Food Network, and all the Discovery channels, is weighing a sale.

And while there may be multiple suitors, the most likely buyer of some or all of Warner Bros. Discovery is the new Paramount Skydance—largely comprised of the former Viacom conglomerate that owns CBS and, of course, Paramount Studios.

Why does this matter? First, because streaming is a disaster of abundance. There’s a ton of new and archival content out there, more easily available than ever, but it’s hard to keep track of what service is running the shows you’re currently watching. I’ve even heard of people using spreadsheets to keep track of where their shows are streamed, though there are also services like JustWatch that help with this as well.

This abundance of content, by the way, is the result of two great policy decisions. The major studios promised to make their content more easily available if their copyrights were protected against piracy. Because governments agreed, the content industry kept its promise.

The other great policy decision was to allow broadband companies to invest and build out their networks with a minimal amount of regulation and no price regulation. That led to our incredibly fast and capable broadband networks that can stream 4K video without latency.