Breakingviews - WBD boss David Zaslav reprises Elmer Fudd act
WBD unveiled plans to separate, opens new tab its streaming services and film studio from its cable networks into two publicly traded entities. The legacy TV business will keep up to a 20% stake in its sister company, which Zaslav will run.
The breakup became practically inevitable almost immediately after the ink dried on Discovery's $43 billion merger, opens new tab with WarnerMedia in 2022, which followed the $15 billion takeover, opens new tab of Scripps five years earlier. Building a successful TV, film and video-streaming behemoth proved as elusive as wascally wabbits. Netflix (NFLX.O), opens new tab, YouTube and others were too hard to catch. Zaslav fell $4 billion short of his $14 billion EBITDA target in 2023 and didn't even come close to the sum the next year either.
About $34 billion of net debt complicates the breakup. Details have not yet been disclosed, but Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels said a majority of it is destined for the cable networks outfit that he will lead, while the streaming arm will keep a 'not insignificant' amount.
Zaslav is trying to pare down the amount by offering to buy back as much as $15 billion of it at a premium to where it had been trading pre-announcement, backed by a new term loan from JPMorgan. Under the terms, creditors who don't participate in the cash tender over the next month will be left with unsecured holdings that may get knocked further down the capital structure. It's unlikely that this bit of financial engineering will help with the next, as both companies are still apt to be heavily indebted.
WBD shareholders have become exasperated with Zaslav's cartoonish antics. With a stock price that has tumbled from about $30 to below $10 over the past four or so years, they rejected his lavish $52 million pay package. He may yet orchestrate another deal or two, perhaps finding buyers for each of the companies if he manages to pull off the split. Given his past performance, however, there may be more hare-brained ideas along the way.
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Times
14 minutes ago
- Times
Ashley Roberts: how life in the Pussycat Dolls almost broke me
Scattered across Ashley Roberts's body are a series of intricate, finely drawn tattoos. Dandelion seeds run up one arm, as if blown there by the breeze. But nowhere among them can I see the symbol of the Pussycat Dolls — a heart with 'PCD' inside. Being a member of the group defined Roberts's life for a decade. They came to be considered one of the world's most successful girl bands, but by the end left her in pieces. Led by frontwoman and main singer Nicole Scherzinger, the Dolls conquered the world between 2001 and 2010. They sold 40 million singles and 15 million albums. Their stage act, depending on your perspective, epitomised booty-shaking female empowerment or the oversexualisation of women through explicit dance routines and lyrics. When the group reunited for a performance on The X Factor: Celebrity in 2019, in the lead-up to an announced 36-date comeback world tour in 2020 (it never materialised due to Covid), there were complaints to Ofcom. The Dolls danced and writhed on stage as if they'd never left it, Roberts in leather hotpants with a bare bottom. 'We wanted to come back with a bang,' she says. 'We knew we represented being sassy and being 'out there' but, I mean, my little butt cheeks… Oh my gosh.' She was 37 by then, but she danced as if she were still the 19-year-old who had left Phoenix, Arizona, for Los Angeles. She had begun dancing at three, singing at eight. Her father, Pat Roberts, was in the world of rock'n'roll as a percussionist in the Mamas & the Papas. She had seen Janet Jackson on stage with her mother, Peggy Lorraine, and thought, 'I want to do that.' Today Roberts, at 43, looks relaxed, happy and wholesome. She is wearing a cute lilac shorts and crop-top gym set. Her skin is lightly tanned, her hair highlighted. She is now a breakfast presenter on Heart radio, with Amanda Holden and Jamie Theakston, and she has her own Noughties show on Saturdays. We are meeting because Roberts has written a book, Breathwork: Techniques for Better Mental, Emotional and Physical Health, which seems to have taken her by surprise. It is about the power of learning how to breathe properly and how to self-soothe. She's aware of how woo-woo it sounds, voicing what most of us think: 'Who the hell has time to stop and do breathing exercises?' Apparently, 45 per cent of us — and about 67 per cent of men — would prefer to give themselves an electric shock than sit for 15 minutes a day quietly with their own thoughts. 'I get it,' she says. But there can be no better example than Roberts of a life transformed by its practice. Interwoven with the exercises is the story of what happened to Roberts before, during and after becoming a Pussycat Doll. She has had — until discovering breathwork — an almost lifelong dependence on the benzodiazepine Xanax. It started during high school but even as a small child she self-soothed with NyQuil (like Night Nurse in the UK), before moving on to the antidepressant Lexapro, then finding Xanax. 'I was so young and I didn't have the knowledge I have now. I think A led to B led to C. Xanax is addictive. For me, for decades I was just leaning on what I could get to help me crash out. My brain just wouldn't shut off and my anxiety was too intense. It was, 'I want to sleep; I need to sleep,' and I was willing to take whatever would help me.' Cut to life as a global pop star, which began when she joined the Pussycat Dolls in 2003 when she was 22. She was discovered in LA, as a dancer, by the group's founder, Robin Antin. By 2005, their album PCD was multiplatinum, with global hits such as Don't Cha and Buttons selling many millions. 'I remember being on stage in New York with the crowd singing back the lyrics and thinking, 'Oh, this is really happening.' It was a fast, extreme rocket ship. There were no discussions around, 'How is your mental health?' It was a different era. Now, artists are coming forward to talk about their struggles and concerts are rejigged. I remember once we were in three countries in one day. Eventually, my body just got to the point of shutdown. I was really, really sick.' Roberts's account — which, incidentally, she tells apportioning no specific blame to the male-dominated music industry — is nonetheless a revealing insight. You can't help but be struck by how hard the band worked. The breaking point came almost five years after that platinum album. The toll on her body was too much: a reliance on Xanax; years of bad eating; bad sleeping; intense adrenaline with nowhere for it to go after a show; a life on the road with no home comforts as well as managing what is now openly acknowledged to have been the band's complex dynamic, with Scherzinger, as the main singer, wielding more power than the rest. Eventually, Roberts was admitted to hospital. The Pussycat Dolls were in London. Even at this point, she remembers worrying only about her place in the band. She initially resisted medical advice to have an emergency MRI — thinking, there's no time — but it was suspected that she'd had a brain aneurysm. It was, in fact, extreme stress, exhaustion and burnout. 'I remember saying [in the hospital], 'I need to get on a flight to Germany. I've got a show to do. You gotta give me something.' That was the mentality. I was having extreme headaches, being sick. They found viral arthritis in my knee. I couldn't do anything really. But that was my drive. And then when I finally got out of the Dolls [in 2010], I had eczema all over my legs, shingles across my face and a stomach ulcer. An acupuncturist told me then, 'If you don't scream, your body's gonna scream for you.' It was a manifestation of 'go, go, go' for years or 'grind, grind, grind', an accumulation of being on the road at a time when nobody really spoke up about anything. There was also this feeling that we could be replaced in some way. But also there was my own drive, growing up as a dance competitor. So it was a combination of the two.' In the book Roberts refers to 'trauma experiences'. Eight years after the Dolls disbanded, and after she had lost her father, Pat, to suicide following his own lifelong battle with mental illness, she resorted to eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing therapy, a type of psychotherapy used to heal trauma after distressing life events. She was not the only Doll who had therapy. How bad was it? Roberts is diplomatic, saying, 'There was just so much going on, so many different levels.' In explosive tweets, one former temporary band member — Kaya Jones — launched an attack on the treatment of the group by music execs and Antin, who refuted the charges. Roberts's story echoes the trajectory of other talented young women in the music industry (Amy Winehouse being one) — women who pursue their dreams, who love what they do, but do so at risk to their wellbeing because of the 'system'. Britney Spears was an early supporter of the group and look what happened to her during her career. Stars such as Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa and Charli XCX have changed that and not a moment too soon. In the book, Roberts is funny and self-deprecating. In person, now the picture of good health, she is similarly low-key and modest. I get the impression she genuinely wants other people to be able to calm themselves down without medication. 'It's probably a bit of having grown up, but I really feel like practising breathing has allowed me to understand how my body feels around certain people. 'My foundation is stronger. I'm not saying I'm some kind of guru, or that I've got a certificate saying I've got everything figured out. If anything, it's the opposite. But I do feel better.' It got her off Xanax, it changed her relationship with herself — which was always the primary goal — and it changed her relationship with men. Her partners post-the Dolls were 'macho' men who made her feel safe on a surface level, but were essentially repeating unhealthy patterns. 'For whatever reason,' she writes, 'probably something to do with being so lost without my dance and what I went through with losing my dad, I got caught up in a series of relationships that weren't healthy. The one thread that ran through was that I was finding myself attracted to these ultra-masculine types who would then treat me in an unduly controlling way. 'It was traditional gender roles, a lot of possessiveness, and this very strange contradiction of feeling so safe with these big dudes who had the physical power to protect me, but at the same time not safe at all because of the way they spoke to me and treated me. It was more that I was on edge, constantly feeling guilty and worried I was about to do something wrong. There was a sense of surveillance and constant judgment.' Two years ago she met her present partner, George Rollinson, an artist and tattooist. He is 25 to her 43. 'I was having my hot girl summer. I was 41, I was finally feeling fabulous, the best I've felt in my life, comfortable in my body, just being free and enjoying myself. In the beginning, we were just having fun and I was thinking. 'Well, this is not going to go anywhere because you're too young.' But then I thought, 'You are the most emotionally intelligent, most transparent, most kind guy. I feel like I'm in the healthiest relationship ever. I've finally got there, you know?' Her early blueprint of male behaviour was her beloved father, but she says from an early age her nervous system was affected by his up and down moods. Some days he was a 'goofy big child'; at other times she worried about him surviving. Her parents separated when she was 14. At 16, her brother, Jayce, was diagnosed with a severe mental illness after years of misdiagnosis. 'We didn't necessarily think anything of it until he got a bit older and things started to shift a lot.' Jayce lives in a psychiatric institution in the US. 'When I visit my brother, I get a real awakening of the freedom we all have. I've sort of dedicated [the rest] of my life to making sure I live it, because my brother doesn't get to make that choice.' Pat Roberts died in 2018. 'He couldn't take it any more. He'd had enough. I'd watched him struggle my whole life and it's something you think you are prepared for, that [suicide] could be a possibility, but you never really prepare yourself.' Roberts had ruled out parenthood herself early on, even as a child. 'I was very clear that the cycle would end with me,' she says, referring to the Roberts family's apparent genetic predisposition to mental illness. And now? 'There's still a huge part of me that doesn't want to take that risk [of passing on mental illness]. I love travelling and I love furry animals and I'd probably be really happy having five dogs running around and jumping on my face.' There is something so joyful and optimistic about Ashley Roberts. Her social media is full of funny little skits. When the Dolls broke up for good she found a life coach, took acting lessons in LA, learnt improv and revisited cities and countries that she had only experienced via hotel rooms. She went to an ashram in California and dedicated a month of her life to doing something new (swimming with sharks, skydiving, riding a motorbike). In 2012 she appeared on I'm a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! without really understanding what it was. 'Snakes and rats, that's not my vibe. But I was like, 'F*** it, I'll have stories to tell,' ' she explains. It turned out to be a great career move. 'It changed the trajectory of my life. I slept the best I've ever slept. To this day, I don't know why.' The British public loved her and she made it to the final. There were also rumours that Dec, before his marriage to his former manager, was smitten with her. She would go on to have a spell on Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway (2013-6), the duo picking up that Roberts didn't remotely take herself seriously. 'They're great boys,' she says. 'Amazing humans. I loved working with them.' The world of UK entertainment adopted her and, after a period of living partly in LA and London, she moved here full time. Strictly Come Dancing was mooted in 2017 but was delayed until 2018. Her father had intended to fly over to watch her, but missed seeing her dance. 'I felt like I could honour him,' Roberts says. She danced with her partner, Pasha Kovalev, on Remembrance Sunday weekend, and dedicated the routine to her father. The judges were reduced to tears. Even now, bereaved people come up to her in the street to thank her. A year after Strictly, while working at Heart, she was also in the West End musical Waitress. So why would she even have contemplated embarking on a 36-date world tour in a band that had destroyed her health? 'I'm a woman now,' she says. 'I feel more connected to my body. I was like, 'I'm gonna enjoy this.' And I always loved the feeling of being on stage with an audience.' Despite everything, there are no regrets. 'It all had to happen. It was outrageous, brilliant, exhausting, challenging, tough. It was everything.' The tattoos prove it, from 'KA' — kick ass — on a finger to 'love and transformation' on her left foot. 'Now I'm in a space where I have the tools. I know I am not alone having difficult things to cope with. I just want to share what I've learnt. Maybe it will help other people.' Breathwork: Techniques for Better Mental, Emotional and Physical Health by Ashley Roberts (Leap, £20) is published on July 17. To order a copy go to or call 020 3176 2935. Free UK standard P&P on online orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members Hair: Lewis Pallett at Eighteen Management using Authentic Beauty Concept. Make-up: Lan Nguyen-Grealis at Eighteen Management using Armani Beauty
Daily Mail
33 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Struggling Yankees star's dad gets into explosive argument with Mets fan
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The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Amazon extends Prime Day discounts to 4 days as retailers weigh tariff-related price increases
Amazon is extending its annual Prime Day sales and offering new membership perks to Generation Z shoppers amid tariff-related price worries and possibly some consumer boredom with an event marking its 11th year. The e-commerce giant's promised blitz of summer deals for Prime members starts at 3:01 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday. For the first time, Seattle-based Amazon is holding the now-misnamed Prime Day over four days; the company launched the event in 2015 and expanded it to two days in 2019. Before wrapping up Prime Day 2025 early Friday, Amazon said it would have deals dropping as often as every 5 minutes during certain periods. Prime members ages 18-24, who pay $7.49 per month instead of the $14.99 that older customers not eligible for discounted rates pay for free shipping and other benefits, will receive 5% cash back on their purchases for a limited time. Amazon executives declined to comment on the potential impact of tariffs on Prime Day deals. The event is taking place two and a half months after an online news report sparked speculation that Amazon planned to display added tariff costs next to product prices on its website. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt denounced the purported change as a 'hostile and political act' before Amazon clarified the idea had been floated for its low-cost Haul storefront but never approved. Amazon's past success with using Prime Day to drive sales and attract new members spurred other major retail chains to schedule competing sales in July. Best Buy, Target and Walmart are repeating the practice this year. Like Amazon, Walmart is adding two more days to its promotional period, which starts Tuesday and runs through July 13. The nation's largest retailer is making its summer deals available in stores as well as online for the first time. Here's what to expect: Will a longer Prime event lessen the urgency? Amazon expanded Prime Day this year because shoppers 'wanted more time to shop and save,' Amazon Prime Vice President Jamil Ghani recently told The Associated Press. Analysts are unsure the extra days will translate into more purchases given that renewed inflation worries and potential price increases from tariffs may make consumers less willing to spend. Amazon doesn't disclose Prime Day sales figures but said last year that the event achieved record global sales. Adobe Digital Insights predicts that the sales event will drive $23.8 billion in overall online spending from July 8 to July 11, 28.4% more than the similar period last year. In 2024 and 2023, online sales increased 11% and 6.1% during the comparable four days of July. Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, noted that Amazon's move to stretch the sales event to four days is a big opportunity to 'really amplify and accelerate the spending velocity.' Caila Schwartz, director of consumer insights and strategy at software company Salesforce, noted that July sales in general have lost some momentum in recent years. Amazon is not a Salesforce customer, so the business software company is not privy to Prime Day figures. 'What we saw last year was that (shoppers) bought and then they were done, ' Schwartz said. 'We know that the consumer is still really cautious. So it's likely we could see a similar pattern where they come out early, they're ready to buy and then they take a step back.' How will rising costs from tariffs affect discounts? Amazon executives reported in May that the company and many of its third-party sellers tried to beat big import tax bills by stocking up on foreign goods before President Donald Trump's tariffs took effect. And because of that move, a fair number of third-party sellers hadn't changed their pricing at that time, Amazon said. Adobe Digital Insights' Pandya expects discounts to remain on par with last year and for other U.S. retail companies to mark 10% to 24% off the manufacturers' suggested retail price between Tuesday and Friday. Salesforce's Schwartz said she's noticed retailers becoming more precise with their discounts, such as offering promotion codes that apply to selected products instead of their entire websites. Will shoppers stick to necessities or splurge? Amazon Prime and other July sales have historically helped jump-start back-to-school spending and encouraged advance planners to buy other seasonal merchandise earlier. Analysts said they expected U.S. consumers to make purchases this week out of fear that tariffs will make items more expensive later. Brett Rose, CEO of United National Consumer Supplies, a wholesale distributor of overstocked goods like toys and beauty products, thinks shoppers will go for items like beauty essentials. 'They're going to buy more everyday items,' he said. What are some of the deals? As in past years, Amazon offered early deals leading up to Prime Day. For the big event, Amazon said it would have special discounts on Alexa-enabled products like Echo, Fire TV and Fire tablets. Walmart said its July sale would include a 32-inch Samsung smart monitor priced at $199 instead of $299.99; and $50 off a 50-Inch Vizio Smart TV with a standard retail price of $298.00. Target said it was maintaining its 2024 prices on key back-to-school items, including a $5 backpack and a selection of 20 school supplies totaling less than $20. How will Amazon's third-party sellers fare? Independent businesses that sell goods through Amazon account for more than 60% of the company's retail sales. Some third-party sellers are expected to sit out Prime Day and not offer discounts to preserve their profit margins during the ongoing tariff uncertainty, analysts said. Rose, of United National Consumer Supplies, said he spoke with third-party sellers who said they would rather take a sales hit this week than use up a lot of their pre-tariffs inventory now and risk seeing their profit margins suffer later. However, some independent businesses that market their products on Amazon are looking to Prime Day to make a dent in the inventory they built up earlier in the year to avoid tariffs. Home fragrance company Outdoor Fellow, which makes about 30% of its sales through Amazon's marketplace, gets most of its candle lids, labels, jars, reed diffusers and other items from China, founder Patrick Jones said. Fearing high costs from tariffs, Jones stocked up at the beginning of the year, roughly doubling his inventory. For Prime Day, he plans to offer bigger discounts, such as 32% off the price of a candle normally priced at $34, Jones said. 'All the product that we have on Amazon right now is still from the inventory that we got before the tariffs went into effect,' he said. 'So we're still able to offer the discount that we're planning on doing.' Jones said he was waiting to find out if the order he placed in June will incur large customs duties when the goods arrive from China in a few weeks. ___
