The entertainment industry is experiencing a moment that borders on the surreal: three giants –Paramount Global, Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix– compete in the same ring, but seem to belong to parallel universes. If one only looked at their names, he would think they moved comparable fortunes; yes look … its figures, discovers an economic landscape more unequal than a medieval map.
Let’s start with the most striking anomaly: Netflix, a company born as a mail-order video store, is now worth more than the other two combined… and multiplied several times. Its capitalization exceeds 440,000 million dollarsa figure that was previously reserved for oil companies, tech companies, or the whims of bored dictators. It doesn’t transmit signals, it doesn’t have a century-old studio, it doesn’t have gigantic libraries: what it sells is scale, data and an admirable ability to convince the market that its model can continue to grow indefinitely. The investor, like the viewer, likes rhythmic stories.
At the opposite end of the board are Paramount Global and Warner Bros.. Discovery, two Hollywood emblems who walk today with the heavy tread of someone who carries too many decades, too much debt and too many businesses that no longer function as well as before. Paramount, with a market value of around $7-8 billion, is practically listed as a mid-sized company in the S&P 500, despite a catalog that any platform would kill to have. Warner, better positioned but not exactly floating, operates around a capitalization of 60 to 65 billion. Both, when you add up their debts, achieve much higher company valuations, but this number is not a compliment: it is a sign of risk. Debt grows balance sheets, not applause.
The paradox is brutal: two companies with more history, more brands, more content and more rewards than Netflix are worth together on the stock market, which for the red platform is equivalent to a slight wink. Because? Because the market does not pay last; pay for the future. And, for better or worse, Netflix has one. Paramount and Warner, on the other hand, seem trapped in a perpetual transition: streaming that doesn’t take off enough, traditional activities that erode too quickly, endless restructuring, synergies that never happen.
The disparity is not an accident: it is a symptom. Hollywood is no longer valued by the size of its studios or the length of its red carpets, but by its ability to generate cash flow in an ecosystem where the user jumps platforms like someone changes tabs. Whoever gets the attention wins; Whoever tries to preserve it with nostalgia loses.
So while Netflix works, Paramount and Warner stumble trying to tie their shoelaces. The question is not who is worth more today, but who will be more valuable tomorrow. And the market, cruel but honest, has already chosen its favorite. jmuller@abc.es
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