U.S. streaming media set off “M&A wave”
Offer 9 billion! The US “Variety” said on the 17th that Amazon is conducting multiple rounds of negotiations with MGM and is expected to buy the veteran Hollywood film company for $9 billion. “Variety” received news in December last year that MGM, which was in trouble with the epidemic, was in a state of “for sale” when the company was valued at US$5 billion. Amazon announced last week that it had hired former executive Jeff Blackburn to serve as its new company responsible for global media and entertainment. It is speculated that it is preparing for this deal.
As one of the oldest companies in Hollywood, MGM, founded in 1922, was once one of the symbols of American movies and Hollywood. Over the years, it has accumulated a large number of high-quality film and television copyrights, including the “007” series and “The Hopper” More than 4,000 films including “Robocop” and “The Silent Lamb”, as well as a total of 17,000 episodes such as “Stargate” and “The Handmaid’s Tale”, are all urgently needed film and television resources for online streaming media platforms. . And Amazon is now vigorously developing its media business. Last year, related expenses were as high as 11 billion U.S. dollars. In contrast, MGM’s revenue in the first quarter of this year was only 400 million U.S. dollars. If Amazon can take advantage of MGM’s high-quality resource library, it will greatly enhance the attractiveness and competitiveness of its streaming media platform.
In addition to emerging streaming media forces such as Amazon and Netflix, other traditional media groups are not to be outdone and are planning big moves. US CNBC stated that US telecommunications giant AT&T has also begun to merge its entertainment content subsidiary Warner Media with rival Discovery Channel to create a media group with a market value of US$150 billion.
In fact, it was AT&T who spent US$85 billion to acquire the original “Time Warner” three years ago. After changing its name to “Warner Media”, it reintegrated multiple resources such as CNN, HBO and Warner Bros. Pictures, and launched streaming in May last year. Media platform HBOMax. The Discovery Channel also launched its own streaming media platform Discovery+ in January this year, featuring shows without scripts. The media predicts that the merger will be completed in the second quarter of this year, and the transaction involves up to $43 billion. This will also help AT&T seize the promising streaming media market in the future and accelerate direct-to-consumer transactions.
Nowadays, the global streaming media competition situation has become more fierce. Although the number of users of Netflix is still ranked first (200 million), Amazon fully relies on the original Prime membership system, and the number of bundled streaming media users has reached 175 million, which is the most advanced. The number of fast Disney+ users has now exceeded 100 million. In contrast, AT&T/Warner’s HBOMax has been online for a whole year. Although it has adopted aggressive promotion measures such as “Synchronization”, the number of users now has just exceeded 40 million, which is not even as good as Apple’s AppleTV+ (42.6 million). There is still a lot of distance from the big players.
plays for Tottenham, has informed the club that he hopes to leave the team this summer. As soon as the news came out, the Premier League golden boots quickly triggered looting by the major European giants. Up to now, there have been six clubs expressing interest in Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Barcelona, Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain.
Kane is in excellent form this season. At the age of 27, he is at the peak of his career. So far, Kane has played 334 games for Tottenham and scored 220 goals, making him the seventh striker in Premier League history. However, Spurs has been weak in recent years and has no hope of winning the championship, and it is very likely that it will miss the Champions League next season for the second year in a row.
“Daily Mirror” stated that Kane intends to determine his whereabouts before the start of the European Championships (June 12), and currently he prefers to stay in the Premier League. According to the “Mirror”, Kane’s transfer fee is about 100 million pounds, and Tottenham Chairman Daniel Levy intends to mark Kane’s price of 150 million pounds.
“The Times” revealed that Chelsea are the most sincere among the 6 teams. Although Chelsea currently has Werner, Abraham and other centers, they still plan to introduce Kane. But the biggest obstacle for Chelsea is Tottenham boss Levi, who does not want to sell the team’s trump card to rivals in the same city.
Premier League champions Manchester City had originally stipulated not to pay more than 60 million pounds for a single player, but they may break this principle this summer and spend the acquisition of Glarish and a new center, and coach Guardiola also appreciates Kane very much. As for Manchester United, after renewing Cavani, they did not rule out the possibility of introducing new strikers. Manchester United are even willing to let the “King of Lin” Lingard join the transaction, adding money to buy Kane.
In addition to the top three in the Premier League, Barcelona, Juventus and Paris are also paying attention to Kane’s latest moves. These three teams are all disappointed in the Champions League this season and need new superstars to strengthen the lineup. Taking into account Levi’s unwillingness to sell Kane to competitors in the same league, the French giant Paris Saint-Germain may become Kane’s most popular next home. It is worth mentioning that the Paris coach Pochettino has had the experience of cooperating with Kane at Tottenham.
