Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said the major subscription streaming suppliers should bundle and market their platforms together before big technology companies get the drop on them.
“If we don’t do it to ourselves, I think it will be done to us. It will be Amazon who does it, or Apple who does it, or Roku who does it. They’ve already started,” Zaslav said Thursday while speaking at MoffettNathanson's inaugral Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in New York.
He said the need to jointly market their competing streaming services is driven by consumer demand -- as premium content has dispersed from the pay TV bundle to direct-to-consumer streaming and beyond, consumers are having a difficult time finding it.
"Imagine you were back 30 years ago and you wanted to watch CBS and you had to download and buy something," Zaslav said. "And then you want to watch ABC [but] had to download and buy something. ...It's not a good consumer experience ... Everyone is Googling ‘Where is it?’ How do I get it?'” Zaslav said. “It’s not rational, and it’s not really sustainable.”
“It seems very clear that if we were to package this great product that we have with others, we would wake up tomorrow, and in each market, if we are the number one, or two, or three product, if we were marketing with the number two or three for a specific price it would be great for consumers," Zaslav said. "It would probably reduce churn. We would be marketing one product. And it would provide a meaningful consumer experience.
“We could do it -- the content owners in markets or, more broadly, across regions, could do it. Whether we do it this year or in three years. I think something like this will eventually happen," he added.
