John Landgraf has said that a Paramount Skydance takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, or another mega studio merger, is a matter of when, not if.
The FX chairman said it was “inevitable” that there would be seismic consolidation as legacy studios aim to compete with Netflix, Apple, and YouTube. His comments come as speculation about Paramount Skydance’s interest in WBD heats up.
Speaking at the Royal Television Society’s Cambridge Convention on Thursday, Landgraf said: “We have an industry that, from a structural standpoint, requires some consolidation. We can’t have as many streaming services, certainly not global streaming services, and some of the great legacy majors in the United States don’t really have enough scale.
“I think that’s why you see — between Paramount, Universal, and Warner Brothers — a desire to consolidate at least two of those companies to try to create another distributor that has a scale globally.”
In conversation with Sister co-founder Jane Featherstone, he added: “I really honestly think it’s inevitable. If you look at the balance sheet for half of these companies independently, they really don’t have any way of scaling to 200, 250, 300 million global subscribers without some kind of consolidation.”
Landgraf acknowledged that it would be “really hard for the creative community, because essentially, there’ll be one less buyer” and “consolidation means greater efficiency.”
“I have to make a few things that really work globally”
The boss of the network behind The Bear and Alien: Earth said Disney is well-positioned to compete with scaled-up rivals, but he revealed that he is changing his commissioning strategy as the Mouse House pursues growth outside of the U.S.
“I have to make a few things that really work globally,” he said, adding: “We’re really trying to reposition as much capital as we can outside the United States to try to get better.” He said shows like Shōgun are attracting more viewers outside of America than domestically, which he said was a blueprint for some of the series he wants on FX.
Langraf spoke about the genesis of Shōgun, explaining that he wanted to find an “epic” story, like Game of Thrones, but not set in space or the future. He joked that it was a “terrifying” bet, but said he was fortunate that his 20 years in the job gave him the headroom to take more risks.
Reflecting on the rise of YouTube and growth in short-form online viewing, he said FX offers a key point of difference. “The thing I would say about content on the internet is that it doesn’t have a lot of subtext; it’s all text. The best storytelling has layer upon layer of deeper meaning.”
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