Traditional Providers Losses, 3rd Quarter 2024 Edition

[savarese04]

Not the same situation at all because that isn't how accounting works. The write-downs you reference were related to the goodwill that was on the books for Warners/Paramount as a result of the acquisitions they went through. These networks have a very long history under current ownership so there is little to no goodwill to write-down (USA has been part of NBCU since 2004, Syfy since 1997, Oxygen 2007, E! 1997 while MS NBC, CNBC and Golf all internally developed so zero goodwill). This is no "write-down" coming for these channels that they are trying to avoid.

While this is true, I think this is precisely why they did this. Since they can't write-down the goodwill, they would have to risk devaluing the book value of the channels themselves. Better to move them to a new entity at full book value and then run the risk of them being worth less later. I appreciate good accounting shenanigans as much as the next guy, but we all know that none of these assets are worth what they used to be. It's getting close to the point where the only true value left is the brand name itself.

 

[lakebum431]

And all of them are not worth what they used to be, since 2017, have 32 Million less subscribers, that means those per sub fees went bye bye, advertising revenue is rumored to be half what it used to be.

So yes, they should be devalued as Warner/Paramount has already done.

While this is true, I think this is precisely why they did this. Since they can't write-down the goodwill, they would have to risk devaluing the book value of the channels themselves. Better to move them to a new entity at full book value and then run the risk of them being worth less later. I appreciate good accounting shenanigans as much as the next guy, but we all know that none of these assets are worth what they used to be. It's getting close to the point where the only true value left is the brand name itself.

It doesn't matter that they are worth less. You're not understanding the accounting rules. The goodwill associated with the networks was written down for Warners and Paramount. You don't write them up as they become more valuable. These are point in time assessments that are done for valuation at the time of acquisition (or if they are internally built, there is zero value on the books). Because the ones that NBCU acquired happened so long ago, there is very little (or zero) goodwill on the books (and no tradename value left) for those networks. In the case of Warners, they ascribed goodwill to those assets back in 2022. Because of the large purchase price there was a substantial amount of goodwill put on the books at that time. As the value of the networks declined since then the associated goodwill was written down. This assessment is required to happen every quarter. There isn't anything on the books to write down.