Warner Bros. Discovery appears to have bigger digital plans for Charles Barkley and Anderson Cooper.
Warner Bros. Discovery plans to introduce a more robust offering of sports and news content to its Max streaming service in the near future, executives said during a conference call Thursday with Wall Street analysts, an effort they no doubt hope will give lend the venue an edge over rivals.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said Thursday that the company, which operates CNN and has a robust portfolio of NBA, MLB and NHL rights has “a real strategic plan that we are finalizing” regarding sports. He also noted that “news and sports are important. They are differentiators. They are compelling. They make these platforms come alive.”
A Warner Bros. Discovery spokesman declined to elaborate beyond the executive’s remarks.
The company works on its plan as rivals have moved well ahead. NBCUniversal has crafted four different streaming products that use the assets of MSNBC, NBC News and its long-running “Today” and “Dateline” shows to reach discrete pockets of viewership. Amazon regularly makes the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” and a passel of New York Yankees games available to the broadband crowd.
Speaking during the call. Warner Bros.’ JB Perrette, who heads up its streaming operations, suggested sports or news could be used to drive an incremental fee for those subscribers who wanted to see such programming. Warner Bros. Discovery has tested a variety of strategies for sports in different parts of the world, he said, including the use of a separate tier.
Warner’s plans for news and sports in the streaming age have been widely anticipated. When the company secured rights to the NHL — Disney’s ESPN is the other partner with the league — it also negotiated the right to stream hockey games on Max, which so far it has not done. The challenge, no doubt, is that Warner surely realizes that sports drives a significant audience to traditional assets like the TNT cable network and is mindful of not interrupting that flow of viewership and the revenue it represents.
The company has in recent weeks acknowledged that it is exploring ways to get more CNN programing on Max, examining the news outlet’s broader portfolio to see what content might work. Executives will have to navigate agreements with CNN’s traditional distributors that often require cable and satellite companies get first access to CNN’s live broadcasts.
CNN had built a robust streaming offering. CNN+, the last major project launched under the auspices of the network’s former top executive, Jeff Zucker, debuted in March of last year, stocked with new programs from anchors like Jake Tapper, Brian Stelter and Kate Bolduan. CNN went on a hiring spree, luring Kasie Hunt from NBC News and Audie Cornish from NPR, along with Chris Wallace from Fox News Channel. Within weeks of a takeover of WarnerMedia by Discovery Communications, however, the project was scrapped.
Some of CNN’s content has been available Warner Bros. Discovery streaming hubs like Max or Discovery+ for months. Chris Wallace’s”Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace” is distributed both on Max and on CNN. The new Sunday documentary program, “The Whole Story,” is also available for streaming, as are several of the original documentary series and films produced by CNN over the past decade.
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