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Roku was a champ. Lionsgate surged and Netflix jumped. Tech shares went bananas in 2023. Huge media shares had a blended yr of transition dominated by Hollywood strikes with linear tv declines and streaming losses.
Paramount fell. Disney and Fox have been principally flat on the yr. Giants Comcast and Sony, which each produce other companies like broadband or video games and music, each had good runs. Warner Bros Discovery gained a bit. All are pushing for profitability in streaming and progress there’ll affect how the shares carry out in 2024.
Comparatively talking, 2023 was an actual bonanza in contrast with a really dismal 2022 when solely two – that’s two – media shares rose for the yr: WWE (now a part of TKO Group) and Nexstar.
It was a surprisingly good 2023 for shares total with the S&P 500 closing up greater than 24% for the yr. Buyers shrugged off excessive rates of interest and inflation, recession fears, threats of a authorities shutdown, a quick banking disaster and worldwide strife, turning round a yr initially anticipated to be quite glum for markets.
Tech specifically introduced the warmth, fueled largely by an AI frenzy. The well-known FAANG group of shares — Fb (now Meta), Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google (now Alphabet) — has morphed into The Magnificent Seven. Newly coined this yr by an analyst (from the film), it’s Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Invidia and Tesla. This gang contributed considerably to total beneficial properties. Shares of adjoining tech from Snap to Spotify additionally rallied.
Exhibitors have been cut up to decrease amid angst at 2024’s field workplace prospects. Broadcast shares fell, with promoting tender however set for a political tsunami.
And the yr yr wrapped with a flourish of M&A chatter that hasn’t but however might additionally buoy shares in 2024. It doesn’t harm that the Federal Reserve indicated it might lastly reduce rates of interest in 2024 after 11 hikes during the last two years.
A Nearer Look
Roku was king of media in 2023, up 119%.
Keep in mind again in March when the corporate worriedly introduced that it had 1 / 4 of its money at Silicon Valley Financial institution, which worn out within the largest financial institution collapse since 2008. Catastrophe was averted when the FDIC agreed to totally assure all deposits and Roku took it from there. The enterprise is benefitting as tv advert {dollars} shift from linear to digital, because it expands abroad and because it sells plenty of branded Sensible TVs. Could also be a possible takeover goal.
Disney, the one showbiz inventory within the 30-member DJIA, nosed up barely for the yr. That’s properly off its excessive for the yr of $110 in January, when the market was flushed with enthusiasm at CEO Bob Iger’s return. However these are sophisticated instances with linear tv in regular decline, streaming nonetheless within the pink and Disney going through a string of field workplace underachievers.
Iger notably acquired the remainder of Hulu from Comcast, paying a beforehand agreed upon $8.6 billion minimal. It could owe extra as each side have groups working to determine a valuation. He’s waffled a bit on entertaining presents for ABC and linear networks and is in search of a strategic accomplice for ESPN forward of an eventual streaming launch. Disney is reportedly doing a take care of Reliance for its belongings in India.
Wall Streeters hope the brand new yr will carry an replace on succession planning, and maybe on an NBA contract renewal. One analyst says he’s been getting plenty of shopper calls on Disney not too long ago. “They’ll say issues like, ‘I used to personal Disney. I simply really feel prefer it might be an attention-grabbing inventory. There are such a lot of shifting elements proper now, might you simply get me in control?’”
It seems to be like the corporate will enter 2024 going through a proxy struggle with activist investor Nelson Peltz, who needs two seats on the board — for himself and former Disney CFO Jay Rasulo. Peltz launched an analogous adversarial marketing campaign final yr however backed off in February earlier than a showdown on the annual assembly.
Warner Bros Discovery is up about 10% however off its excessive and from the $24 it traded at when Discovery and Warner Media merged in April 2022. CEO David Zaslav is targeted on boosting money movement and paying down the corporate’s huge debt, which stood at $45.3 billion on the finish of the September quarter. Buyers didn’t love that quarter, spooked specifically by a glum promoting outlook.
The advert market appears to have entered a brand new section not useful for legacy media, which is the lack of pricing energy, says one analyst. “Traditionally, as linear TV audiences shrunk, huge corporations might offset that by elevating the costs they charged advertisers for the remaining viewers. Within the final yr, that recreation appears to have failed,” except it’s sports activities.
With the April 8 two-year anniversary of the Discovery-Warner Media merger, WBD can discover offers with out a huge tax penalty. Zaslav has had conversations with Paramount’s controlling shareholder Shari Redstone and CEO Bob Bakish a few attainable deal. Warners is also a vendor however that’s exhausting too, partially as a consequence of its large steady of legacy cable networks.
Warner Bros Studio and HBO “are good companies with stable inventive trajectories, and, to us, the guts of the corporate,” stated one analyst.
Paramount World, in the meantime, fell 17%. It’s financially squeezed so seen as likeliest to do a deal sooner quite than later. Conversations with Zaslav in addition to with Skydance Media CEO David Ellison have touched on each an outright sale in addition to the opportunity of Redstone promoting her curiosity in NAI, the household holding firm that homes her Paramount inventory. Common Paramount shareholders wouldn’t be getting any premium for his or her shares in that situation, perhaps one cause deal discuss has not moved the needle on the inventory. Skydance wouldn’t face regulatory hurdles.
Amongst huge cap leisure shares, Netflix gained 63%. Studios are newly keen to license reveals. It has stronger steadiness sheet than most of huge media and a bigger backlog of unreleased content material of anybody however Disney, all of it devoted to streaming. It has added an promoting tier and is seeing upside from a crackdown on password sharing.
Smaller Lionsgate had a improbable run, up a whopping 88% because it ended the yr closing the acquisition of eOne from Hasbro and saying plans to mix the studio with a SPAC early subsequent yr in a separation from Starz that it hopes will unlock worth.
Fox remains to be properly preferred by some analysts — no streaming losses and a concentrate on dwell sports activities and information. However traders like progress and a few marvel concerning the finish recreation. “It simply is what it’s,” stated one. With linear tv shrinking and the price of sports activities rights rising, “What’s the narrative?”
Fox is going through a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit by a second voting machine firm, Smartmatic. Earlier this yr, it agreed to an $800 million settlement simply earlier than trial in a primary go well with introduced by Dominion Voting Techniques.
In exhibition, the movie show gig remains to be a tricky one and the strikes disrupted manufacturing, pushing some huge movies again, which is able to gradual the tempo of recent launch in 2024. Cinema shares ended the yr blended, with Cinemark – the No. 3 chain — exhibiting sharp beneficial properties. The worlds’ largest exhibitor AMC Leisure plunged, however analysts don’t thoughts. It’s “lastly buying and selling roughly in step with its pre-meme historic a number of,” stated one.
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