Waystar Royco, a company run by the Roy family in successionmay be heavily inspired by the business empire of Rupert Murdoch and the empire of Sumner Redstone, but is actually even bigger than News Corp and Fox combined. His many companies include cable news networks, a movie studio, a book publisher, newspapers, a cruise line, a website, a streaming service, satellites, and theme parks. The fictional conglomerate is worth an estimated $80 billion, much more than Fox Corporation, which is valued at $17.6 billion, but much lower than The Walt Disney Company, which is valued at $183.45 billion. When we break down all the specific properties that Waystar owns, we can see how competitive it is with any real media conglomerate in existence today.
Broadcast media
Waystar Royco is a public company headquartered in New York. Although it owns many companies in various fields, its best known and most controversial organization is probably the right-wing cable news network American Television Network, commonly known as ATN. ATN broadcasts from the studio’s headquarters in Manhattan’s financial district. Its main leaders are CEO Sid Peach (Jeannie Berlin) and Chairman Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen). His most notable on-air talent is Mark Ravenhead (Zach Robidas), whose alleged affinity for Nazism was the target of Tom Wambsgun’s interrogation in the second season. According to Fox News, ATN is often a talking point throughout the show’s four seasons. succession and is a profitable and powerful brand for Waystar Royco.
Besides ATN, Waystar also owns NCN and LNN, two other cable news networks. Little is known or said about them, although the NCN logo resembles the NPR logo, perhaps suggesting that it is a more moderate or liberal network. And LNN could be an allusion to CNN, although that might go against the ATN branding.
Print mass-media
Like the Murdochs, Roy owns a collection of newspapers all over the world. The New York Globe, probably based on the New York Post, is a right-wing daily tabloid based in New York City. Other American newspapers include The Correspondent, a worldwide broadcast newspaper perhaps similar to USA Today, The Cincinnati Standard, The Chicago Daily (another right-wing tabloid), and The Boston Daily Express. International Waystar newspapers include the Journal Quebecoise (probably among the first Logan Roy newspapers (Brian Cox) since he grew up in Quebec), The Paris Times, Germany Today, The London Journal, and The Shenzhen Sun (an English-language newspaper based in China). All or most of these papers, like Murdoch’s News Corp, are assumed to be politically conservative.
Waystar also owns North Star Publishing, which is likely based on HarperCollins. Not much is known about the North Star, but it doesn’t seem to be as important to Roy’s family as their newspapers.
Waystar Studios
Waystar Studios is the film studio behind the Thanksgiving-themed box office bomb. The largest Türkiye in the worldmovie franchise called brotherhood baby (perhaps a riff on Boss Baby), Kalispitron (a disastrous production that caused Waystar to lose big chunks of change), and an animated film called morons (probably a reference to Minions). Waystar Studios is based in Burbank, California and is run by Joy Palmer.Annabeth Gish), at least until Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) impulsively fires her. Fun fact: the Waystar Studios scenes in Season 4, Episode 6 were filmed on the lot itself and in the Warner Bros. office. studio. (Warner Bros. Discovery is the parent company of HBO.)
Brightstar Adventure Parks
Waystar’s Brightstar Adventure Parks is a company that owns and operates several theme parks around the world. Many of the characters and mascots featured in the parks, such as Dirk the Turkey or Doderik the Dog (the subject of one of Lukas Matsson’s offensive tweets), are taken from Waystar Studios films, making Brightstar a bit like Disney or Universal Studios theme parks. . In Season 1 Cousin Greg (Nicholas Brown) is studying management at Brightstar Park in Buffalo, New York. Roman Roy later enrolls in the same park training program in Georgia.
Brightstar Cruise Lines
Brightstar Cruise Lines, formerly known as Waystar Cruise Lines, is the source of the scandal, Senate investigations, and cover-up seen throughout Season 2. Bahamas. One of Bright Star’s ships is called the Quantum of the Seas. For a time, Tom Wambsgans managed the Cruise Lines division before moving to ATN.
voltigeur
Vaulter is a news aggregation site hosted by Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) took the lead for a short time. Although Ken believed in the site’s ability to generate long-term profits, Roman argued that it should be gutted due to poor staff productivity and rumors of unionization efforts. Eventually, Logan sides with Roman and orders Ken to fire the Vaulter employees and shut down most of his operations. Vice seen a lot of myself on Vaulter, but the site also bears some real resemblance to Gawkerwhich was forced to file for bankruptcy after the notorious right-winger Peter Thiel funded a lawsuit against her.
StarGo
StarGo is a Waystar streaming service that allegedly hosts Waystar Studios products and ATN programs. It has been repeatedly derided as a lousy platform. In what might be a bit of a joke, its name and logo are reminiscent of HBO Go, HBO’s streaming platform before HBO Max. Its reputation as a generally terrible service could also be a nod to Fox Nation, a platform that even Fox news figures themselves hate.
Life+
Shortly before his death, Logan wanted to create a luxury residential complex for the elderly called Living+. In Season 4 Episode 6, Kendall and Roman consider starting a company after their father passes away. In a taped footage taken before his death, Logan mentions that some of Waystar Studio’s characters would be featured in Living+, perhaps drawing real-life comparisons to Disney’s plans for housing for the elderly.
satellites
In the first season, Roman is assigned to oversee the launch of a Japanese satellite. He rushes the launch date and the rocket explodes. Although not stated in the series, it is likely that Waystar Royco is in the telecommunications business, as is Rupert Murdoch’s Sky UK. Rocket explosions may also be a reference to the so-called “billionaire space race” - a competition between Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson to be the first to land on Mars.
Source: Collider
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