WBD Big 2025 Plan: MAX Supercharge Guide
ole “estate planning” loopholes to avoid paying $8B worth of taxes when he leaves the Earth (er, meaning he dies — not like, uh, a BLUE ORIGIN flight), to which even OPENAI responded “Really, bro? 😏”
PLUS: SPOTIFY CEO Daniel Ek must really not be doing well with his FANDUEL account these days (don’t get him started on how MAN CITY is due 🙄) — he sold another $37M worth of SPOT stock this week. According to MBW, this is on top of selling:
$35M on Nov. 20
$36M on Nov. 26
He has sold a total of $320M in 2024.
THEN: CONDE NAST is laying off another round of folks, but no number is out there yet. This follows a layoff round at HEARST of around 200 folks last week.
Aaaannnd . . . VOX is also laying off some folks in its lifestyle brands, after installing a partial paywall on The Verge this month as well.
Moving on to some HBO news, let’s dive into the upcoming changes at HBO and MAX. As someone who has spent most of my career at HBO, I recently attended MAX’s special preview event in London led by Casey Bloys, JB Perrette, and Gerhard Zeiler. It was quite the experience to have the bosses in the front row for the presentation.
Looking back at the past two years, HBO’s cultural presence and major programming volume have been below the usual standards. However, there’s a strong indication that HBO’s buzz and share of the cultural conversation is about to increase significantly in 2025. This change couldn’t come at a better time for Warner Bros. Discovery in terms of overall business trends.
This is just a glimpse into the exciting developments happening in the world of streaming entertainment. Stay tuned for more updates and insights into the evolving landscape of media and entertainment.
