The ongoing back-and-forth over the future of HBO and its parent company Warner Bros. Discovery calls to mind a line from one of the network's great recent series: the business magnate Logan Roy telling his squabbling children "You are not serious people.

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.

He and Gunnar Weidenfels detail the blockbuster unbundling of WBD: Decision "reflects our belief that each company will go further and faster apart than they can together."