Amid financial woes, could Warner Bros. Discovery sell HBO?

The other week, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO got on the phone to talk about earnings with investors, and the news wasn't good. The media company, which owns brands like HBO and CNN, posted a quarterly loss of of $9.98 billion, most of that related to its linear TV business. If you haven't noticed, a lot of people stream most of their TV these days.

And indeed, the company's streaming service Max has been profitable before; in 2023, it was profitable for the whole year, which was impressive given how many of the new names in streaming have struggled to make money. But with the stock price plunging and the company overall in rough shape, the executives in charge are surely considering drastic action. A step in the right direction might be to fire CEO David Zaslav, who has a reputation for being difficult to work with and for not understanding the nuances of the entertainment industry, despite being paid ludicrous amounts of money. But according to Variety's report on the company, that doesn't seem like it's going to happen anytime soon.

Another possibility that's gaining steam is that WBD might sell parts of itself off, perhaps its gaming division or HBO. You can smell the blood in the water, with publications like Business Insider suggesting that Apple buy HBO.

Ultimately, we don't know what WBD will decide to do, but I can't help but wonder if HBO wouldn't be better off owned by a company that wasn't in free fall. I'd say that it should be an independent entity, but that seems like a fantasy in an age where mid-sized companies are traded like chips among enormous ones.

Even though HBO itself turns a profit, it may still be affected by WBD's financial woes. For instance, the latest season of House of the Dragon, one of the biggest shows on the network, ended after only eight episodes, down from the 10 we got in the first season. It seemed pretty clear to me that more episodes were originally planned but got cut. Producer Sara Hess even hinted that the decision to scale back on the number of episodes "wasn't really our choice."

Might this have been an instance where WBD interfered in an attempt to save money? Again, it's just speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised, and I think HBO would be better off someplace where it didn't have to deal with these kinds of headaches. We'll see what happens as this business story develops.

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h/t The Hollywood Reporter, Quartz