Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ: WBD), formed earlier this year when telecom giant AT&T spun off WarnerMedia and merged it with Discovery, has all the makings of a media giant. The company's stable of intellectual property and assets is formidable: HBO, DC Comics, Warner Bros.' films, linear TV channels including CNN, TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, HGTV, TLC, Discovery, and many more, and rights to broadcast NBA games all fall under the company's umbrella.

Warner Bros. Discovery is also already a major player in streaming. Combined, its direct-to-consumer business, which includes HBO, HBO Max, and Discovery+, had 94.9 million subscribers at the end of the third quarter. HBO Max recently got a boost with the release of Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon, with each episode drawing an average of 29 million viewers in the U.S.

While Warner Bros. Discover has great assets, there are two things working against it. First, CEO David Zaslav has the unenviable task of combining Discovery, which he has led since 2006, with WarnerMedia. As reported by CNBC, Zaslav stepped into a giant mess. Spending at WarnerMedia when AT&T owned it was out of control, and Zaslav concluded that the business had been mismanaged.

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Source Fool.com