This will likely prove a surprise to most; it did to me, honestly. We know that entertainment giant Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) is planning a breakup into “Warner Bros.” and “Discovery Global.” But new reports suggest that, right now, the breakup may cause almost as many problems as it solves, particularly in terms of who gets what content. Warner shares took a hit from this, and went down fractionally in the closing minutes of Monday’s trading.
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We know that the streaming and studios operations will be in Warner’s hands, while Discovery gets much, but not all, of the television. Some were concerned about the issue of sports on Warner channels, like the NBA. But Warner lost much of that content to Amazon (AMZN), and even lost Inside the NBA to Disney (DIS) and ESPN. Warner has since been working to restore its lost sports content with smaller niche items like SuperTri League.
But that is not all. There is also the matter of certain CNN specials, which will likely be going over with Discovery Global rather than sticking around with HBO Max. With the possibility of a stand-alone CNN service to come, that will only further muddy the waters. Thankfully, the split is still projected to hit around mid-2026, so there should be time enough to set up some licensing deals or the like between the two to pass around some content as needed.
Saying Howdy to Chess Sets
But that was not all Warner had going on today. We heard about the new Roku (ROKU) television service, Howdy, which will be calling on Warner content to fill in its own need. Howdy will give users access to around 10,000 hours of total content from a range of third-party licensors for the surprisingly low price of $2.99 a month. It is not quite a FAST platform, but at those prices, it is pretty close.
Meanwhile, while yesterday brought news of the Harry Potter birthday celebration, Warner made another push into Potter merch with Particula. This time, it is a chess set that is designed to “…reimagine…the iconic Wizard’s Chess scene from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” The board is actually partially robotic, reports note, which allows the pieces to move by themselves.
Is WBD Stock a Good Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on WBD stock based on 10 Buys and eight Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 69.09% rally in its share price over the past year, the average WBD price target of $13.36 per share implies 4.99% upside potential.
