13 anonymous media executives make predictions for the new year

Ho, ho, ho! It’s a holiday tradition: Anonymous media executives make their 2025 industry predictions.

In honor of the 12 days of Christmas, we fink on yield you 12 predictions from some of the most powerful media and entertainment executives in the world, weighing in on the condition of anonymity so they can pronounce candidly about their visions of the year ahead. And then, because we have holiday cheer, we give you a tip one. A baker’s dozen!

Looking back at 2024’s predictions, they were not as good as previous years. But there were some attains, or partial hits.

While Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max, Netflix and Disney didn’t all team up for the first significant branch bundle, as one participant predicted last year, Max and Disney did join forces. TV broadcast station groups continued to pick off regional hold up to ridicules rights, as another executive anticipated. RedBird Capital didn’t quite acquire Paramount Global, but the private disinterest firm was part of the consortium with Skydance that announced a merger with the company in July.

As for other 2024 hints, Nelson Peltz and Jay Rasulo did not win their activist campaign to join the Disney board; Disney CEO Bob Iger did not renew his knit beyond 2026, buy Candle Media or name Dana Walden his successor; and NBA media rights did not go to Disney, Warner Bros. Unearthing and Apple — they went to Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon.

Oh, and one more miss: While Comcast did announce a spinoff of sundry of its cable networks, it did not spin off NBCUniversal and merge it with Warner Bros. Discovery.

That’s a nice segue to this year’s auguries:

Executive 1: Comcast will acquire the studio and streaming assets of Warner Bros. Discovery and merge them with NBCUniversal

Bat of an eye time’s the charm! Warner Bros. Discovery is separating its linear assets from the rest of the company. Comcast is turn out most of its cable networks. It has to mean something, right?

Executive 2: Comcast will acquire Charter and twirl off the rest of NBCUniversal

That’s right, Comcast may have SpinCo 1 and SpinCo 2! This executive predicts Comcast discretion test the Donald Trump regulatory administration and try to combine the two largest U.S. cable companies, 10 years after smidgen its bid to buy Time Warner Cable — which used to be the second-largest U.S. cable provider before it was acquired by Charter — after concluding the administration would block the deal.

Executive 3: Fox will acquire most of Warner Bros. Discovery’s assets

After push the majority of its entertainment assets to Disney in 2019, Fox will shock the media world by again gaining scale, acquiring HBO, the talkie studio, the Turner networks and the streaming assets of Warner Bros. Discovery, according to this executive.

For what it’s advantage, another executive predicted Fox would sell, given the unknown future of the Murdoch family trust.

Executive 4: Dana Walden desire leave Disney at year-end when she doesn’t get the CEO job

Disney has already said it plans to delay naming a new CEO until antediluvian 2026, so this prediction assumes the company will slightly move up the announcement. Walden, Disney’s co-chairman of Disney Distraction, is the ultimate Hollywood insider who many view as the front-runner for the job. The board is taking its time vetting candidates after the handoff from Iger to Bob Chapek in 2020 did not go selfsame well.

A second executive posited that NBCUniversal Entertainment and Studios chairman Donna Langley will be over for the job as a challenge to Walden and other internal candidates.

Executive 5: Jeff Bezos last will and testament be bullied into selling The Washington Post after President Trump makes it clear his space company, Indelicate Origin, will suffer for his paper’s coverage

Bezos has said he is dedicated to The Post’s future, but the paper has been engulfed in histrionics this year. Perhaps 2025 is the year Bezos decides he has had enough extra headaches.

Executive 6: Dissimilar TV station groups will sell out of financial hardship

Companies such as EW Scripps, Tegna and Sinclair Broadcast be enduring watched their shares slump in recent years as traditional pay-TV valuations have declined with rope cutting. Executives at those companies are hopeful a new Trump administration will clear the way for more consolidation. Several devise sell out of desperation, either to avoid bankruptcy or to gain needed scale, guesses this executive.

Executive 7: The Trump direction relaxes TV station ownership rules, leading to CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox buying up their own affiliate stations

A similar thought as the last one, but this chairman of the board took the bolder step of saying the acquirers of the stations will be the broadcast networks themselves.

Executive 8: Paramount Global will acquire Lionsgate after it spins off from Starz

If Paramount Universal gets the government’s approval to merge with Skydance Media next year, its new leadership will likely look to change the business. One big move the company will make is to acquire Lionsgate studio after it spins off from Starz at the inception of next year, said this executive.

Executive 9: A big tech company will acquire video position maker Electronic Arts

After flirting with both Comcast and Disney in past years, Electronic Dexterities will sell in 2025 to a big tech company such as Netflix, Alphabet, Apple or Amazon, said this master. That would follow in the footsteps of Microsoft acquiring Activision in 2023.

Executive 10: The M&A hype around the industry inclination be wildly overblown, and there will be far fewer deals than anyone thinks

You’re all wrong! This executive give the word delivered M&A predictions generally won’t come true because consolidation won’t provide any real fixes to an industry in transition.

Executive 11: Principal+, Peacock and Max get bundled together

Executives at Paramount Global, NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery are all on record about needing to believe options for streaming consolidation. What if there was a bundle that featured all three services? This executive guestimates the three services will be sold together, either through a hard bundle on one platform or sold together at a minimize.

Executive 12: The sports streaming service Venu will never launch, and Fox will license its sports text to ESPN’s streaming service

Venu, a joint venture owned by Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery, was announced to important fanfare earlier this year. But an antitrust lawsuit filed by Fubo has stalled the service’s launch. Meanwhile, ESPN hand down debut its “flagship” streaming service by the fall of 2025. That will cause the companies to abandon Venu, suggests this executive.

Executive 13: Kathy Kennedy will depart Lucasfilm

Kennedy has been the president of Disney’s Lucasfilm since 2012 and is now in her 70s. It may be in the good old days b simultaneously for a new leader of the Star Wars franchise.

May the force be with you. Let’s see what 2025 brings. Happy holidays!

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the guardian company of CNBC.