Warner Bros. Discovery is splitting into two separate publicly traded companies – one oriented around the HBO Max streaming service and Warner Bros. studio, and the other around CNN and other television networks.

Every deal has its own rationale and its own narrative that follows separation – you can’t say the act itself guarantees any particular outcome. What's next for this one?

Four years ago, David Zaslav clinched a debt-heavy deal to merge cable mainstay Discovery Inc. — which he’d run since 2006 — with what was then called WarnerMedia. The story he told investors was that the two entities’ diverse array of media assets “are better and more valuable together.” He doesn’t believe that anymore.

Warner Bros. Discovery will split into two companies by next year, with much of its streaming and movie production moving under one company and its live sports and news to another, according to the Washington Post .

Though the new year has almost passed its first full fiscal quarter, media layoffs across the entertainment industry have continued to bleed over from last year’s avalanche of job cuts. The unfortunate trend can still be felt following the COVID-19 pandemic,