'Who thought they would buy Whole Foods?': Industry insiders see Amazon as the ultimate wild card in the media merger wars
- As the media industry goes through a massive realignment driven by multiple mergers, Amazon looms in the background.
- Some industry insiders see Amazon staying away from any acquisitions, as the company looks to avoid getting saddled with declining businesses.
- Yet others see a perfect opportunity for the e-commerce giant to pounce and grab up a media asset that could help bolster Prime Video in its quest to take on Netflix.
- Amazon's Prime service is now the No. 3 video-streaming service behind Netflix and YouTube. A recent survey, however, found that only one in three Prime members actually used it.
As the media industry plays a prolonged game of merger musical chairs, it seems wise to ask: What would Bezos do?
While many of the ongoing or proposed deals - whether AT&T-Time Warner or CBS-Viacom - are driven by media companies' need to get bigger to defend against tech giants like Netflix and Facebook, Amazon's looming hangs over every discussion.
Amazon's Prime service is already the No. 3 video-streaming service behind Netflix and YouTube. And Amazon seems to loom large over just about every industry, with businesses as varied as healthcare and grocery stores taking large hits to their stock price from the mere prospect of Amazon disruption.
But does Amazon want in on any media deals? Does it need a big media platform to pump up use of its Prime Video service (a recent survey found that only one in three Prime members actually used it) or to ramp up its advertising aspirations?
Or is Amazon better off hanging back and letting legacy media players grapple with legacy issues while it focuses on multi-industry domination?
We talked to media experts, and they were torn. Some said Amazon should steer clear of big-ticket deals and stick to bidding for sports rights. Others said it could bid for CBS or a movie studio like MGM.
And looming large over Amazon and any moves it may make is the Trump White House.
Here's what people are saying about Amazon's next move in media:
The 'Stay the Hell Away' theory
Broadcast and cable-TV companies are in secular decline. Comcast shed 140,000 cable-TV subscribers in the second quarter alone. The companies' businesses are being thoroughly disrupted by Silicon Valley.
So, many media insiders ask, why would Amazon want to mess with expensive companies and start managing decline?
"Why would Amazon want broadcast networks tied to [getting paid by carriers] or cable networks that require linear distribution? It makes zero sense,"said Rich Greenfield, a media and tech analyst at BTIG.
Greenfield said Amazon would just pay for shows, movies, and sports rights, something that would be much cheaper than making acquisitions.
"They will buy nobody," he said. "Who wants to be tied to a legacy ecosystem?"
But could Amazon buy CBS? Could anyone?
On the flip side, there are a lot of deals to be had out there. CNBC reported in June that the industry analyst Michael Nathanson had written a note suggesting that Amazon should snatch up CBS.
Of course, the future of CBS is highly uncertain. As the company explores a merger with Viacom, leadership of the two companies are locked in a bitter legal battle, with CBS' controlling owner, the media mogul Shari Redstone, looking to combine the two companies and push out CBS' CEO, Les Moonves.
On Friday, CBS was rocked by a bombshell story in The New Yorker detailing multiple women's accusations of unwanted sexual advances by Moonves spanning decades. CBS' board is said to be weighing whether it should dismiss Moonves.
All this drama could inhibit sales talks - or, theoretically, accelerate them if Redstone can assume control quickly.
CBS could give Amazon access to a content studio, letting it make "Star Trek" series that it could distribute globally and possibly use to bring lots more folks to Prime. Maybe there's a way for Amazon to use CBS' mainstream shows to get more Americans shopping and streaming through its ecosystem.
It could use CBS' direct-to-consumer subscription play, CBS All Access, as a testing hub for getting more people streaming other CBS shows, locking them in to the Prime ecosystem.
Or it could give Amazon tons of headaches, such as owning TV stations that are declining in value, not to mention a news organization it may not want to touch, the ad-industry veteran Jay Sampson said.
"At $22 billion plus a premium?" he said, referring to CBS' $22 billion market cap before any Viacom deal happens.
"I don't see what they'd be getting that's terribly strategic."
If anything would be compelling about CBS, Sampson said, it would be live sports like CBS' NFL deal. But Amazon - which has nonexclusive rights to Thursday-night NFL games - could just wait until the next huge sports-rights package is up for grabs.
Should Amazon just buy its way into sports?
It's not easy to figure out which media play Amazon may make because the company rarely telegraphs its intentions. Did anyone see the Twitch acquisition coming a few years ago?
"It's hard to tell. These guys are nonlinear thinkers," the media consultant Bernie Gershon said. "Who thought they would buy Whole Foods?
"If anything, I think Amazon will make a play for more sports rights when they come up rather than buying a legacy media company."
Amazon has already snatched up some rights to stream the NFL and the English Premier League. A quick way Amazon could get much deeper into sports is by snatching up 21st Century Fox's regional sports networks, which Disney must sell as part of its agreement to buy major Fox assets.
But those networks - while highly lucrative - are tied to an eroding pay-TV model, at least for now. Would Amazon want to buy them and then unbundle them? Or leave as is?
Remember, Amazon did buy Twitch
Elgin Thompson, a managing director at Digital Capital Advisors, which specializes in mergers and acquisitions, sees perhaps a surprising synergy between sports and Amazon's video game livestreaming service, Twitch.
Simply put, livestreaming is a great way to market Amazon shopping.
"Amazon acquired Twitch for $1 billion not because of an innate love for online gaming but to reach the massive and growing eSports audience," he said (the price was $970 million in 2014). "That time spent can also be used to serve ads for Amazon products."
Plus, tons of gamers spend time playing massively popular sports-themed games (think the "Madden" or "FIFA" series). So there could be natural ties to exploit, he said.
Why not just buy a studio?
There is lots of support for this idea in media circles. Amazon is putting lots of money into making its own shows. But it could use an instant library of shows and movies. One name that was frequently mentioned was MGM, which produces the James Bond franchise.
Indeed, while distribution and consumption are being disrupted in media, content is still vital.
"Amazon Studios to date has been largely organic or self-funded. There is an argument for having a central, scaled studios hub, in the way that Whole Foods has added a bricks-and-mortar hub to the e-commerce retail strategy."
Then there's the Trump factor
It's fun to speculate what should or shouldn't be done with CEO Jeff Bezos' checkbook. But even if Amazon has the perfect strategic rationale and the wherewithal to make a big deal, there's one factor that could muck up the whole thing: The Donald.
President Donald Trump's administration seems to like certain mergers (Fox-Disney) and not others (AT&T-Time Warner).
And he's also overall not wild about Amazon and Bezos.
In truth, Trump is a wild card in any media deal.
For example, Sampson argued that Amazon should grab up Comcast, for its crucial broadband connection into millions of potential Prime homes. But "I don't think Bezos would want the scrutiny," he said, considering that Comcast owns NBC News. "He took The Washington Post private for a reason."
"The reality in all of this is the White House," Thompson said. "Anything Amazon does will be initially blocked for obvious, personal reasons. Hopefully the court of law remains impartial and adjudicates transactions on the merits. But these are unprecedented times."