Why Apple should buy Warner Bros. Discovery. No, seriously

The TV industry is in free fall. So I’ve got a not-so modest proposal: Time for Apple to jump in with both feet, and buy HBO — along with the rest of Warner Bros. Discovery, the company that owns the network.

I know, I know: “Apple should buy X, Y or Z” is a long-running piece of techworld fanfic. And it almost never happens. Yes, Apple bought Beats for $3 billion 10 years ago, which remains a very weird acquihire. But that’s been about it.

But now I think Apple should spend real money and buy WBD. Not just HBO, but also Warner Bros. Studios, along with CNN and a slew of cable channels in terminal decline.

The why here is pretty simple. Apple has been interested in HBO in the past and has already spent many billions trying to build its own studio and streaming service — with mixed results. They could keep doing that, or they could just buy a company that already has a successful studio and streaming service.

And then do … nothing. At least not right away.

It might be tempting for Apple to try to insert MacBooks and AirPods Maxes into HBO shows — the way it does with Apple TV Plus programming — but the right call would be to step back and let the people who already run HBO and Warner Bros. keep doing what they’re doing — making stuff lots of people like, watch, and pay for.

And, crucially, to keep selling all of it to anyone, whether they’re paying to watch this stuff on an iPhone, in a theater, or on good ol’ cable TV.

The money part is also reasonably straightforward. WBD’s stock has been steadily getting cheaper since the day Discovery and the company formerly known as Time Warner mergred in April 2022. But now that it’s clear that this is a failed merger, it’s on sale for more than two-thirds off, with a market cap of $17 billion. Throw in $40 billion in debt, and you’re looking at an enterprise value of about $60 billion.

So maybe, after a premium, the whole thing costs Apple $70 billion? That is: What Microsoft paid for Activision a few years ago?

That’s very, very doable for a company worth more than $3 trillion that produces annual profits of $100 billion.

And then, boom: Apple’s services business — the part of the company Apple needs to keep growing while its hardware business slows — instantly grows by nearly 50%.

Would there be issues with regulators? Absolutely, no matter who wins this fall’s election.

It’s one thing for a tech company to buy a minor studio and 50% of the James Bond franchise. It’s quite another to hoover up a conglomerate that owns CNN, a ton of other TV networks some people still watch, and one of the industry’s biggest producers of movies and TV shows. A lot of people would have opinions about Big Tech getting even bigger with this one.

On the other hand: The current owner of those properties is flailing. It’s a reasonable bet that someone else is going to own this thing eventually. And if you’re worried about antitrust, maybe it’s better that it goes to the likes of Apple instead of a competitor like Comcast, which would mean more consolidation.

Also! While Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs, he has turned out to be a very slick political operator — he’s the guy who managed to keep both China’s Xi Jinping and Donald Trump happy with him simultaneously. He could finesse this one, too.

There is one other problem with this fantasy deal: The reason that WBD and Paramount just took $15 billion in writedowns is that they’re saddled with money-making but declining cable TV networks.

And tech giants like Apple have made it clear for years that they want nothing to do with those businesses. When Discovery — a big collection of cable channels — merged with Warners — which has its own collection of cable channels — a few years ago, tech executives made it clear the company had just become an even more unattractive acquisition.

But, again, WBD was worth a lot more a couple of years ago. Maybe now it’s cheap enough to make the headache of owning and operating declining TV networks worth it.

Or maybe it’s not, and Apple just turns around and spins those networks off to a private equity buyer. Someone who relishes the chance to buy a distressed asset that still throws off a ton of cash.

In that scenario, Apple would end up pulling off the break-up WBD reportedly considered, and abandoned, just a few weeks ago: keeping the good part of the company and selling off the not-good part to an eyes-open buyer.

OK. So this is fanfic, too, right? Probably.

But it also seems much more plausible than it ever has been. And if Tim Cook is looking for a big, signature move — besides the Apple Vision Pro no one seems to know what do with — before he retires, he could do worse.