I know that a popular refrain in Hollywood is that we need longer television seasons with more episodes, and that might be true.

OTOH, I impulsively decided to watch the 2019 Korean baseball series Hot Stove League because I stumbled across the show and the trailer looked interesting. And two episodes in, I am enjoying it a lot and it’s managing to wash the memory of trainwreck of a series The Hawk out of my brain.

The downside is that I just realized the series has 17 one-hour episodes. Which seems like a lot for a lightweight (but very entertaining) series about the worst team in Korean baseball.

Wish me luck.

Earlier tonight, I did a Reddit AMA on the Media Mergers subreddit and fielded a number of really smart questions.

I thought the discussion was worth sharing, so here are some excerpts from the conversation.

What are Netflix's biggest problems now as you see it?

Can you also give your personal rankings of all the subscriptions you have?

With Netflix, it depends on what part of the world you’re looking at. In the more mature markets, such as North America, the UK, Western Europe, Australia/Africa, there are to primary problems. The first is that the company has nabbed all of the people likely to subscribe to Netflix. So growth is a challenge right now and one of the ways they’re battling that is by adding things such as select live sports. Those drive new subscriptions, but don’t really help with overall engagement numbers.

Secondly, Netflix is just in a battle for attention with YouTube, social media and other mobile-first platforms. They have a similar problem across the globe, but the players are different, depending on where you are.

In growing markets, Netflix has the same battle as other global players. You don’t get much for a subscription and the competition with homegrown streamers can be brutal. India is the best example of that, but it’s also an issue across Asia and most of Africa.

Between press accounts and ones I pay for, I have a subscription to pretty much every major streamer and a lot of smaller ones. I watch a lot of scripted shows from Asia and Netflix is my go-to for a lot of those (I am currently obsessed with Agent Kim Reactivated). Hulu has a much smaller collection of international shows, but it’s a quirkier selection.

If I’m ranking them, here is what I would say now, but it could change depending on the week:

Netflix
Prime Video
MLB.TV (my family are huge Cubs fans)
Apple TV (great highs, but a lot of meh)
Hulu
HBO Max
Crunchyroll
MHz Choice
Disney+
AMC+
Bally Sports App (you can watch pretty much every MLB minor-league team for free)
Acorn TV
Peacock
Viaplay
Paramount+
CuriosityStream

For the Paramount-WB Merger, Rob Bonta said in an interview made it clear that he wants the deal blocked but also made it clear that Him and the State AGs will consider or be open to concessions (if Paramount and WB is willing to) that not only involves CNN to be spun off but also other cable networks too along with it, stating that structural concessions and divestures are effective than behavioral ones. Do you see Paramount caving to the states demands by spinning off cable assets to get the deal done or will they back away from their merger agreement with Warner completely? Most importantly, if the merger is blocked, do you see Ellison and Paramount going for NBCUniversal given their JVs in the past or is that off the table?

I think the Bonta comments about CNN were overblown a bit by analysts. But he seems to be open to the cable networks being spun off. Although there is a lot of wiggle room in that. Would they be spun-off in the way that Universal spun off its TV assets (separate company, but mostly controlled by the current owners).

The problem for Paramount if it spins off the cable networks is that one of the reasons why Paramount was interested in WBD is that combining the cable assets of both companies would give it more leverage in carriage negotiations with live TV platforms. Most of Paramount’s cable nets have been hollowed out to the point where most people wouldn’t miss them. And while Zaslav has drastically cut content spending on its cable networks, they’re still more valuable than most of what Paramount owns.

And even if Paramount agrees to divest itself of the cable TV business, that still doesn’t address the other competitive issues with the merger.

Ellison might be interested in a fallback deal. But I think a large part of his financial house of cards will collapse if this deal doesn’t got through. I don’t know that he would be able to convince the Middle East sovereign funds to commit to another deal. And that’s the only way he could successfully attempt another proposed merger.

What are your thoughts on the new Disney leadership and do you see them making any mergers and acquisitions in the future? If so, which potential assets do you see them want to buy?

I think Disney’s management is a bit lost right now. The entire company has been built on a branding flywheel approach over the past two decades and they still haven’t been able to execute it.

They believe they can build a one-stop app that will allow them to provide TV and movie content, while also catering to the theme parks crowd and using all of the interconnected data to make it easier to monetize their IP. But after spending billions, they’re no closer to that future and now they’re floating ideas like a free ad-supported version of Disney+. Which is the kind of move a company confident with its future would consider.

If they do any significant M&A in the next several years, I would expect it to be tech driven - things that improve the company’s back-end and its ability to manage multiple, interconnected streams of revenue.

Netflix earnings were released today, and the market doesn’t seem pleased. They did mention selective M & A. What are your thoughts on what this could entail?

Netflix’s relationship with the market is always complicated, because in many ways it has been a story stock. The idea of Netflix and its future has driven share prices up (and sometimes down) in ways that didn’t really match its performance.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Netflix do more M&A business similar to the acquisition of Ben Affleck’s company. They are heavily invested in using AI and other tech to improve their production workflow and UI.

When it comes to other content companies, Netflix is in a tough spot. The stock was heavily penalized for the decision to pursue Warner Brothers studio, because it was seen by a lot of investors as a sign the company had run out of new ideas. In theory, picking up Universal’s TV/streaming assets would make a lot of sense. But does the company want to risk even more bad press if the effort fails?

Honestly, I think it could either way.

I think it’s also likely they might pick up the rights to a specific property if it were available and Netflix could build multiple properties off of it. There has been some talk they are looking at that in South Korea and Japan.

What the future of ITV if Sky buys it?

For those people who don’t know, ITVX is the streaming home for ITV programming. It was originally developed as a “catch-up” service for ITV programming, although in recent years it has added programming from a number of other sources, including NBCUniversal’s Hayu, AMC Reality and select Disney and Disney+ titles. It also absorbed all of the content from Britbox UK when ITV acquired that service from the BBC a couple of years ago.

With Sky buying all of ITV’s non-studio assets, I would expect to see some sort of rolling up of ITVx into Sky Stream or perhaps some new streaming service that aggregates everything together. It won’t happen overnight, but I would expect ITVx to eventually disappear.

Is it possible that after being spun off from Comcast, NBCUniversal sells off Sky’s telecoms assets? (ie. Sky Mobile, Sky Broadband)

I haven't seen any indication one way or the other from NBCU management about this.

There are two schools of thought. In Europe, telecom and TV services tend to be more bundled than in the U.S. and Sky's telecom business would likely to be helpful for NBCU as it tries to build out its European business post-merger.

But the company will also need money, so there is a school of thought that NBCU might sell off Sky Mobile/Broadband to build up its war chest.

I suspect this decision is going to depend a great deal on whether anyone is seriously interested in acquiring it from NBCU and what the price might be. I think it's less likely NBCU would shop Sky Broadband/Mobile around to gauge interest in the marketplace.

Could Netflix buy Universal?

As I mentioned in another comment, it could buy Universal. But does it have the stomach for it?

It’s hard to see who else would buy Universal if Netflix passes. Comcast executives claim they are structuring the spun-off company to exist as a stand-alone, and that’s technically true. But the M&A rumors are going to continue despite that.

I’ve seen some speculation David Ellison might be interested. But given that it took every bit of emptying piggybanks to finance the proposed WBD deal, it’s difficult to see how he could ever afford it. Plus, rolling yet another one of the major theatrical studios together with Paramount and maybe Warner Brothers would likely be a bridge too far for even the merger friendly Trump Administration.

Could any of the current things going on with Netflix, Paramount/WBD, and Comcast have an impact/effect on Disney’s current ownership of 21st Century Fox?

I don’t think so. There’s a really good argument to be made that Disney has wasted a lot of Fox’s IP and catalog assets. But they would never give up things like The Simpsons. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to a be a penalty for overpaying for an asset and then underutilizing it.

And for whatever reason, Disney has a tendency to acquire media companies and IP only to use them in the least imaginative way possible.

There are now 4 lawsuits against Paramount to stop the the merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros discovery. Do you believe the merger is corrupt as I do?

I suppose technically, it depends on how you define corruption. If the Trump Administration directly suggested that Paramount take specific actions in order to make the merger approval happen, it’s corrupt (and likely the courts would find it illegal). But if David Ellison did things simply because he thought it would please Donald Trump and make the merger approval more likely without having been asked…that still reeks of corruption but is not illegal.

Despite what I think are some serious anti-trust issues, I would still say it’s more likely the merger will eventually be approved - likely with some assets being sold off to please regulators.

There are two big caveats here. The European regulators have been expected to approve the merger this week. If they put off the decision or turn it down entirely (less likely), that would complicate the merger timeline.

Also, if the state AGs can use their lawsuit to push things out towards the end of the year, that would cost Paramount money it doesn’t really have. That so-called ticking fee kicks in on October 1st and a three-month delay until the end of the year would cost Paramount around $1.6 billion. At some point, a delay just isn’t sustainable for Paramount.

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other Congressional Democrats sent a letter to Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward on Thursday pointing out a number of concerns they have about the recently announced Fox acquisition of Roku.

Although based on the first couple of pages of the complaint, you might suspect the legislators don’t actually understand what Roku does:

And in fact, when you read the entire 7-page complaint, you realize that the bulk of the letter asks a series of questions about the process surrounding government approval of several other mergers, including the approval for Paramount merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.

So for all the headlines highlight the Roku questions, the letter is basically just designed as a back-door attempt to get the government to comment on the earlier controversial murders.

SUNDAY, JULY 19TH, 2026:
He'll Never Find Me (Lifetime)
Holmes On Holmes: Building A Legacy Season Premiere (HGTV)
Maine Cabin Masters: All Inn Series Premiere (Magnolia)
100 Cooks Season One Finale (Food Network)

MONDAY, JULY 20TH, 2026:
A Killer Among Friends Season Premiere (Investigation Discovery)
King Of The Hill Season Fifteen Premiere (Hulu)
POV: The Dating Game (PBS)
Solo Traveling With Tracee Ellis Ross Season Premiere (The Roku Channel)
Ugliest House In America Season Premiere (HGTV)