QuestionerThis question comes from Barry Laffer in New York City. Berkshire owns about 94 million shares of Paramount Global, as of the last published data. This asset-rich company has disappointed on recent quarterly earnings reports in just this week slashed its dividend by 80%. How do you see the streaming wars evolving, and do you still have conviction in your investment thesis? Is your investment thesis based on the company being an acquisition target or based on its fundamentals? And how would you like to manage my money for nothing?
WarrenWe are not in the business of giving stock advice to people, and people who don't know anything about stocks can make a lot of money doing that, and we don't think it's something we should give away. But I will say this, it's not good news when any company passes this dividend, or cuts the dividend dramatically. And the streaming business is extremely interesting to watch, because there's people, People love to use their eyeballs watching being entertained on a screen in front of them or a phone or whatever it may be. But there's a lot of companies doing it and you need fewer companies or you need higher prices. Well, you need higher prices or it doesn't work. And you don't lock in people when you get them to join up for the streaming period when your serial runs. I mean, you know, you keep them on for a while. You can't lock them up. And we'll see what happens. I mean, I had a gasoline station when it was 21 or 22, and it's about three or four miles from here. And we had one competitor, and he determined our profit because he looked at his price every day. And if we cut the price, he'd match it, and we couldn't raise the price. And he did twice the gallery, so he won. And there's just basic business problems that you see with certain interests that you don't see with the other. Disney was unique in its animated, what it offered, you know, in the 30s and 40s. And they wrote the stuff off at the first showing, and then they rejuvenated Snow White and all these other people every seven years. And that was fine. But this is a different world. And the eyeballs aren't going to increase dramatically. And the time they can spend are not going to increase dramatically. And you've got a bunch of companies that don't want to quit. And who knows what pricing does under that. But anybody tells you what they know what pricing will do in the future is getting themselves.
[2:55]
WarrenCharlie? Charlie's had a lot of experience, incidentally with Hollywood. I mean, he used to, before I even him. I think the movie business is one tough business. Yeah. That's my view. The talent will make the money. The agents will make the money. And if you've got a theater, you know, the theaters are now doing 70% of the business that they did before the pandemic. And big hits, you know, have enormous grosses. But you can't reduce the supply. People have only got so many, so many hours in the day. They've only got two eyeballs. And they've got more choice than ever before. And they've got stuff that's cheaper that offers them the same experience and some of them like the experience, you know, particularly the big hits of going. But it isn't like you can double the number of people or double the eyeballs or anything like that. And you've got a lot of people. The talent will always get paid. And when you essentially are packaging that talent one way or another, and you need to get higher prices and you've got a lot of strong companies that don't want to quit. That's an interesting, an interesting equation. If you think the movies are tough, try to invest in a New York show on a conventional stage. There they think it's a breach of faith in that business to let the purpose don't put up the money, ever get any money back.