OMAHA, Neb. — Warren Buffett revealed that he dumped Berkshire Hathaway’s entire Paramount stake at a loss.

“I was 100% responsible for the Paramount decision,” Buffett said at Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting. “It was 100% my decision, and we’ve sold it all and we lost quite a bit of money.”

Berkshire owned 63.3 million shares of Paramount as of the end of 2023, after cutting the position by about a third in the fourth quarter of last year, according to latest filings. Just this week, Sony Pictures and private equity firm Apollo Global Management 网页链接{sent a letter to the Paramount board} expressing interest in acquiring the company for about $26 billion. The firm has also been having takeover talks with David Ellison’s Skydance Media.

Paramount has struggled in recent years, suffering from declining revenue as more consumers abandon traditional pay-TV, and as its streaming services continue to lose money. The stock is in the red again this year, down nearly 13%.

Buffett said the unfruitful Paramount bet made him think more deeply about what people prioritize in their leisure time. He previously said the streaming industry has too many players seeking viewer dollars, causing a stiff price war.

$迪士尼(DIS)$ $奈飞(NFLX)$ $派拉蒙全球(PARA)$

其实在不算太久之前，就有人问过我为什么流媒体资产里面有不少公司看起来很便宜了，是不是可以考虑买入。

我当时的回答是这个行业恐怕除了第一和第二，其他都会活得比较艰难，活得很不顺利，最后不断并购重组整合。

谁都会有起落，创作也都有周期，这个行业只有偏执者会生存。因为行业门槛没想象中那么高，爆款谁都有（不信你去看每个公司是不是每年几乎都有爆款剧），但这不是重点，虽然很多人会把重点放在爆款上面。

Netflix上岸了，是因为坚持了之前的逻辑，它从没有认为自己是一个靠爆款剧生存的企业，而是一个管理全球娱乐媒体人才和内容生产的渠道公司，爆款是管理得好必然会有的产物。

迪士尼同样会意识到，流媒体渠道对它来说最重要的并不是你往流媒体输送了多少爆款，迪士尼的内核决不能因为供应渠道端而走偏（此前它走偏了，是因为它在疯狂增长用户的过程中希望和Netflix在Netflix的逻辑之下去拼刺刀，结果没拼过。。）

而其他公司看似确实很便宜，就容易陷入价值陷阱里，因为这些公司仍然有不少用户，也仍然能产出爆款，也依然肯定有一定价值。但这些公司很容易陷入一个两难的境地，他们既不是Netflix，也成不了Disney。

这里不是批评巴菲特，我没这个资格。谁都会犯错，尤其是老巴已经到了这个岁数。就跟他们之前买航空股是一个道理，没啥好深入细究的。

随着ESPN和几大巨头要垄断体育流媒体直播版权，Netflix也开始进军非体育联盟的流媒体直播，后面的战场恐怕只会越发激烈。

希望新的服务，和产业互动模式可以改变一下单纯的版权战和价格战。#2024年巴菲特股东大会#