10 anonymous media execs predict 2022’s marketplace-shaking activities

New yr prediction parts are a journalism conventional. But alternatively of supplying my possess projections, I asked 10 media executives, the guarantee of anonymity, to give me their very best guesses on what’s likely to occur in 2022.

The policies were simple: The prediction could be everything connected to the media and entertainment enterprise, but it had to be important and could not be noticeable.

Here is what they told me.

I am going to revisit the predictions at this time up coming calendar year to see how they turned out, and then poll 10 new executives for their 2023 predictions.

Just one govt stated Roku will invest in Lionsgate’s film and Television manufacturing studio.

Roku has been beefing up its first content material in the Roku Channel, acquiring Quibi’s content material library and “This Outdated Home” in 2021. Founder and CEO Anthony Wood informed CNBC in June he is devoting most of his time charting out a articles system for the corporation.

“This reminds me so a great deal of Netflix in its early days,” media analyst Michael Nathanson explained to CNBC before this 12 months. “I employed to interview [Netflix Co-CEO] Ted Sarandos at conferences 10 decades in the past, and he’d say, ‘Oh, we are joyful with just 1 or two primary shows.’ Meanwhile, they’d be laddering up into much better material.”

Lionsgate has previously signaled to the financial commitment earth it programs to both spin off or market Starz, the top quality streaming support and cable community it owns. That would go away the relaxation of the enterprise — Lionsgate’s film and Television set output studio — primed to find a buyer as nicely.

Though classic information providers these types of as Comcast’s NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS, Netflix and Disney are all hunting to insert more information to their streaming companies, Roku is a wild-card customer that has the market valuation — almost $30 billion — to make a transfer.

Still, Roku shares have fallen by extra than 50% considering that achieving an all-time substantial in late July. Buying Lionsgate’s studio may well get investors to consider its written content ambitions extra significantly.

It hasn’t even been two yrs since Bob Chapek took about as Disney’s CEO. But a single government instructed CNBC there are previously inside wagers at Disney about Iger returning.

Iger, 70, frequently prolonged his contract following arranging to retire in 2015, 2016 and 2018 right before abruptly stepping down in 2020. He is nonetheless Disney’s government chairman right up until the conclusion of the yr.

It is unclear if Iger wants to return. He’s by now operating on a second e book, according to The Hollywood Reporter, after publishing 1 in 2019.

But Disney shares have stumbled this year, down virtually 20% year to day. Iger owns a lot of these shares. The board and Iger may perhaps get restless if Disney+ growth stagnates and the company continues to have turf tensions involving executives.

Two votes for this a person.

“I enjoy Shari [Redstone], but ViacomCBS is not very long for this planet as it stands now,” said a single of two media executives who predicted 2022 will be the 12 months ViacomCBS ceases to exist as an unbiased firm.

Comcast has already held preliminary talks with Redstone, the controlling shareholder and nonexecutive chair of the corporation, previously this calendar year to examine a wide range of strategies to function alongside one another. A merger of NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS would be messy from a regulatory standpoint, likely necessitating a divestiture of both NBC or CBS and their associated regional affiliate marketers.

Around the previous two several years, Redstone has internally contemplated other solutions, these types of as buying Lionsgate’s Starz and merging with Sony Photographs Leisure, according to folks common with the issue. A deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, if that merger closes, tends to make sense. But so considerably, ViacomCBS’s messaging to Wall Road has been that it is really content material to go forward as is.

It was back in 2015 when billionaire media mogul John Malone coined the phrase “absolutely free radicals” to outline pure-play information corporations that will not have the scale to compete for leading-notch motion pictures and Television demonstrates towards media behemoths this kind of as Netflix, Disney, Amazon and Apple.

Some of these free radicals have by now consolidated. Viacom and CBS have merged. WarnerMedia and Discovery agreed to merge. Amazon is awaiting regulatory approval to buy MGM Studios.

But some others, this sort of as Lionsgate, AMC Networks and Fox, carry on to exist. This govt predicts none will be solo right after 2022, either promoting to much larger competitors or merging with just about every other.

Vox’s alternative to merge with Group Nine sets itself as the next reasonable digital media applicant to go public right after BuzzFeed. It just so comes about that Team Nine has presently recognized a SPAC that could be utilised by the organization to go community, in conjunction with merging with yet another digital media player to achieve much more scale.

Apple’s streaming video clip ambitions have been muted, specified the firm’s tremendous dimension. “Ted Lasso” is a strike for Apple Television+, but the support has operated mostly on the periphery of the streaming wars.

Which is likely to improve, mentioned this government, in 2022, and it will be pushed by the acquisition of a information studio. A clean group of individuals who can create strike shows will not just make Apple a much more severe player churning out primary content material. It will also give Apple a library of Television and motion picture shows it can offer to buyers. That is anything Apple will not very own however, but it truly is almost certainly critical to critical extensive-expression streaming ambitions.

Yet another pillar of the streaming wars that tends to get overlooked is the planet of free advertising and marketing-supported companies, highlighted by Fox’s Tubi, ViacomCBS’s Pluto Television set, Amazon’s IMDb TV, and Sinclair Broadcast Group’s STIRR. Intelligent Tv set running methods also give totally free streaming networks, this kind of as Samsung Television set Additionally and the Roku Channel.