The Appeal on the At&T/Warner merger is relevant now

[mattpricetime]

For those of us Scooby addicts who have no real interest in the not-so-wondrous world of big corporate mergers and takeovers i'm sure the stuff going on about acquisitions and lawsuits over the big merger has probably sailed over many heads with a "huh"? But ladies and gentlemen an interview that went out recently could have huge changes in regards to our favorite canine and friends.

As many of us have mentioned before Time Warner (the now Warner media) is itself an umbrella. We have mentioned that there are differences in the Warner Bros branch and the Turner branch. (HBO is also it's own thing but not really relevant here) For those not in the follow At&T filed to merge with Time Warner which passed the legal first round and was approved. However the US DOJ did file an appeal. Why is this relevant? According to comments made from people close to the case, this appeal is only on the Turner side. If the DOJ wins the appeal, AT&T is only going to be selling Turner, not WB. As of this writing Turner is operating business as usual until Feburary 2019 in which case then they may decide to reshuffle it or sell part of it anyway.* (see quote for what I mean there)

Basically folks right now it looks like we have two main options. One would divorce WB from Turner and would obviously cause a major shakeup in how multiple properties like Scooby are handled. The other at least guarantees us there will be a new corporate umbrella to come out this merger and that could easily also shakeup how Scooby and related shows have been treated. (The whole thing about them not being able to touch it for several months is evidence their plan involves restructuring, if they planned to leave it as is that order would be redundant) This is interesting to see how it goes because either way things could be going in rather different directions come Feburary 2019 or earlier.

Just also noting when I say in part, we should acknowledge the idea they may settle somewhere in between. In this case that would obviously mean AT&T would sell some Turner stations and reshuffle others into a new organization, as a way of not having to lose the entire thing (which they don't want to do) but also allowing the DOJ to get a little bit of a "win" by making a move that weakens their monopoly.  In this scenario Boomerang would be one channel most likely to stay with AT&T/Warner because it wouldn't survive too well without that library. They would still have Warner Bros Animation which produces most of the material for the channel anyway.

EDIT: Just for posterity sake, i'm including the interview and quoting the part of importance given it covers other subjects but this was where most of this news was cemented.

www.recode.net/2018/9/1/17807096/makan-delrahim-antitrust-att-time-warner-donald-trump-kara-swisher-recode-decode

Interviewer: Give your easiest lawyer version of what you’re appealing.

Delrahim: Here’s the simplest one.

Interviewer: Before you do that, the judge ruled against you. The merger has gone forward.

Delrahim: The judge said that we did not meet our burden of proof, so the government has a burden of proof by preponderance of 51 percent.

Interviewer: That this will cause harm.

Delrahim: But the judge ruled almost, you know, that we didn’t make a single point in this case and that it was implausible, some of the evidence that was put forward. It was an interesting application of some of the evidence and standards, so we’ll see what the Court of Appeals will decide, later this year, hopefully. We entered into an understanding with AT&T that they would keep the Turner business separate until February 2019, pending appeal or earlier if the appeal decides that they’re fine. That allows, in the event we win, to allow for a structural remedy for them to sell that business off.

Interviewer: Off to one side if the merger goes forward.

Delrahim: To somebody else.

Interviewer: As the merger goes forward.

Delrahim: Well, the merger, yeah. They closed. We let them close. As a condition, we did not seek emergency appeal. If we’d sought emergency appeal that deal could have unraveled. And two-thirds of that deal was not problematic and as long as they kept that business separate, then we go through a regular orderly process.

 The two-thirds he mentioned are HBO and Warner Bros as such they are staying. The last third, Turner is the one they are targeting.

[Doo]

Thanks for the info, Mattpricetime. I would hope that if there is a split between WB and Turner that it would allow them to treat Scooby better, both in terms of airing new series and releasing some of the missing episodes on DVD. It's no secret they've been lacking in both of those departments in the past few years.

[mattpricetime]

That's probably our biggest hope. Obviously this has been going on for a while but the interview with the Assistant Attorney General that went out on Saturday was the first to really highlight Turner's situation. Before they were kind of pressuring AT&T to sell one of several things but what's left of the conversation is about whether Turner stays or goes.

I can't dig up much about what AT&T's plans are if they win but from what I have seen two things are known for sure:
1. The head of Turner would exit the organization, there is no news that he would be replaced either which makes one think the current Turner flowchart would be going away.

2. The AT&T executive John Stankey who now has control over Warnermedia has been tapped with being in charge but in a hands-off kind of approach. Think of him like a hall monitor, he lets them do things their way but he's there to guide them and take care of things if they get into trouble.

3. Under the previous flowchart there was a head of HBO, a head of Warner Bros and a head of Turner who answered to the CEO of Time Warner. Now the head of HBO and the head of Warner Bros answer to Stankey. Where this is complicated is the head of CNN (who before answered to the head of Turner) is now also at the same level answering to Stankey. Where this leads the other channels or groups remains to be in question.

Under the previous Turner chart there were four subgroups (note they include other things besides the channels themselves)

CNN/HLN

CN(AS)/Boom

TBS/TNT/TCM/Trutv

NBATV

These divisions may be dropped or switched around in the new flowchart. This will make some degree of difference. But of course AT&T isn't allowed to really make any of those changes until after the appeal, which kind of makes one wonder if the CNN part is the only part of the equation that isn't heavily being considered for a rearrangement. It's the one who's transition is pretty simple.

Because of the "keep it separate" order from the government, they can't fully integrate Turner yet. So there's still a president of Turner even if the head is gone, for now. We can quote Stankey's actual memo to them. In it he describes it this way: "This initial Turner org structure will allow me to work more closely with more Turner leaders and accelerate my personal learning of the business as we define our shared priorities across the company." In other words he's leaving it as is while the government won't let it change it and wants to get to know everyone currently in power before he decides how to remodel it. It's only the "initial structure", it won't remain that way for sure.

He then also mentions "WarnerMedia will largely be a naming convention to refer to the collection of brands and businesses of the former Time Warner Inc. It will ultimately occupy an even lower profile than the Time Warner Inc. brand. Our important customer-facing brands — HBO, CNN, Warner Bros., TNT, etc. — will all remain unchanged." Notice of course, no Turner but promotions to CNN and TNT. So the way he phrases this makes us think the head of TNT will answer to him, not a president of Turner in the future. This doesn't exactly eliminate the possibility some channels may still be group together or the idea HBO or Warner Bros would absorb some of them to make things simpler.

EDITED For updated info after reading more sources.

Now if all this is for not and AT&T has to sell Turner then TCM would obviously be in a similar spot as Boomerang without the Turner/WB combine. (Let's also note TCM has Filmstruck a streaming service similar to the Boomerang one)

Also just of note AT&T now has the WB-part of the CW all in the clear. It is not a part of Turner. So if AT&T loses Turner but keeps a few channels I'd expect a new Warner Media broadcast company unit added to the flowchart. The WB closed down the WB Network originally to have less responsibility in the tv game, but a lot of things changed since then. So I wouldn't rule this idea out yet.

[futurerocker]

I just hope whatever the outcome is it's for the best for Scooby Doo and other properties.

[ruben MG]

I do not understand much then this means that wb could do scooby better than it is because already turner could not put limits someone could explain me?

[Doo]

Sept 4, 2018 19:30:10 GMT -5 ruben MG said:

I do not understand much then this means that wb could do scooby better than it is because already turner could not put limits someone could explain me?

Simply put, Warner Brothers (the company that owns Scooby) may be have new ownership, or Warner Brothers may split off from the company which currently owns them, Time Warner. Hope that makes more sense

[ruben MG]

Sept 4, 2018 20:26:10 GMT -5 Doo said:

Sept 4, 2018 19:30:10 GMT -5 ruben MG said:

I do not understand much then this means that wb could do scooby better than it is because already turner could not put limits someone could explain me?

Simply put, Warner Brothers (the company that owns Scooby) may be have new ownership, or Warner Brothers may split off from the company which currently owns them, Time Warner. Hope that makes more sense

and if wb decides to break up of time warner scooby it would not be wb anymore?

[mattpricetime]

Thanks for adding before I saw the request Doo. But one quick correction. It is Turner (which is my shorthand for Turner Broadcasting System) that may be leaving from the rest of the family. Scooby and Warner Bros are staying in the new conglomerate.

If Turner leaves the family in it's entirety. Scooby Doo, Bugs Bunny and others would no longer be tied to Cartoon Network/Boomerang. They could go to any other channel Warner Bros wants to start or move to.

However if AT&T gets to keep Turner it is going to be broken and rearranged into a new pecking order. Right now Cartoon Network/Boomerang and Warner Bros Animation are in separate wings of the house. That may no longer be true if the merger completes.


For the record if people here were interested we could do a thread more specifically about some of the known history of the whole Hanna Barbera, Warner Bros, Cartoon Network thing. Because it's the source of most of this stuff spun out of it. But I generally stayed away from much of these topics until now because we are actually dealing with possibilities of a Turner divorce or Turner itself being rearranged. There will be some element of change to WB and Turner because of this, it is just a matter of how much and how fast.

[Deleted]

From what I gather out of all this mess...At&T and most of us want everything all under Warner (Looneys, HB & Scooby) as having everything under one roof is better, but the Turner complications are just that. Complications, which might prevent multiple potentially helpful things from happening because Turner has always been a bit problematic despite CN/Boom having always been a HB thing.

[futurerocker]

Has any other channel shown interest in airing HB series?

[barneynedward]

Will we still be getting the upcoming series? After seeing the animatic for the Penn and Teller episode, I'm really looking forward to that series. It's too bad Scooby has to be kid friendly. It would have been awesome to hear Penn say: "Ghosts are BULLS***!"

[barneynedward]

Maybe they could air it on the CW on Saturday mornings if they lose Turner.

[mattpricetime]

If they lose Turner completely, I would imagine Warner Bros will either be involved in the negotiations or simply honor the ordered contracts as is, then move them out. However as I brought up I can't really see how Boomerang or Turner Classic Movies survive without having access to the Warner catalog. So they might arrange to have them be transferred with a "most of the channel is Warner Bros property anyway so can we at least buy that one?" argument.

EDIT: One other point we need to bring up, I know for a fact Warner Bros does already own a stake in the Boomerang streaming app and i'm pretty sure they do the TCM Filmstruck app too. So there is also the possibility they buy out Turner for the apps, let the channels close and decide from there whether new channels are needed.

As far as other channels, none of which have really had the option for years. Of course some of us speculated Scoobynatural could have been testing the waters. But at the time none of us knew that the United States government was going to appeal to force a sale of Turner or that AT&T had plans to get rid of the current Turner hierarchy either. But we can speculate if some people at the CW and Warner Bros Animation might have known these were possibilities long before we did.

[Deleted]

If the CW was testing waters with Scoobynatural we might finally get that 13 followup as a primetime special would work. We really do need to see what exactly happened there.

[ruben MG]

then the distribution rights of scooby would change from turner to wb and wb would have to broadcast scooby on another channel. but scooby is from wb not from turner right? as I understand turner I buy hanna barbera and then wb I buy turner passing thus scooby to wb but if they are divided ... who stays with scooby