Waystar Royco, the corporate run by the Roy household in Succession, is likely to be closely impressed by Rupert Murdoch’s enterprise empire and Sumner Redstone’s empire, but it surely’s truly even greater than Information Corp and Fox mixed. Its many corporations embody cable information networks, a film studio, a e book writer, newspapers, a cruise line, an internet site, a streaming service, satellites, and theme parks. The fictional conglomerate is value roughly $80 billion which places it far above Fox Company coming in at $17.6 billion, however far under The Walt Disney Firm’s $183.45 billion. As we break down all the precise properties that Waystar owns, we’ll see the way it rivals any real-life media conglomerate that exists right this moment.
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Waystar Royco is a publicly traded firm headquartered in New York Metropolis. Though it owns quite a lot of corporations in numerous fields, its best-known and most controversial entity might be the right-wing cable information community American Tv Community, generally often known as ATN. ATN broadcasts out of its studio headquarters in Manhattan’s Monetary District. Its major executives are CEO Cyd Peach (Jeannie Berlin) and Chairman Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen). Its most notable on-air expertise is Mark Ravenhead (Zack Robidas), whose alleged affinity for Nazism was the goal of a Tom Wambsgan interrogation in Season 2. Based mostly on Fox Information, ATN is usually a subject of dialog all through all 4 seasons of Succession and is a worthwhile and highly effective model for Waystar Royco.
Along with ATN, Waystar additionally owns NCN and LNN, two different cable information networks. Not a lot is thought or stated about them, though NCN’s emblem resembles NPR’s, maybe suggesting it’s a extra reasonable or liberal community. And LNN is likely to be a nod towards CNN, although that may battle with ATN’s model.
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Very like the Murdochs, the Roys personal a group of newspapers based mostly all through the world. The New York Globe, in all probability based mostly on the New York Submit, is a right-wing every day tabloid based mostly in New York Metropolis. Different U.S.-based papers embody The Correspondent, a worldwide broadsheet maybe akin to USA Immediately, The Cincinnati Normal, The Chicago Each day (one other right-wing tabloid), and The Boston Each day Specific. Waystar’s worldwide newspapers embody Journal Quebecoise (which is probably going among the many first papers Logan Roy (Brian Cox) owned given he grew up in Quebec), The Paris Instances, Germany Immediately, The London Journal, and The Shenzhen Solar (an English-language paper based mostly in China). The belief is that every one or most of those papers, as with Murdoch’s Information Corp titles, are politically conservative.
Waystar additionally owns North Star Publishing, which is probably going based mostly on HarperCollins. Not a lot is thought about North Star, but it surely appears to be much less of a Roy household precedence than their newspapers.
Waystar Studios
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Waystar Studios is a film manufacturing studio liable for the Thanksgiving-themed field workplace bomb The Greatest Turkey within the World, a franchise of films known as Frat Child (maybe a riff on Boss Child), Kalispitron (a disastrous manufacturing liable for shedding Waystar giant chunks of change), and an animated movie known as Morons (possible a reference to Minions). Waystar Studios relies in Burbank, California and run by Pleasure Palmer (Annabeth Gish), at the least till Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) impulsively fires her. Enjoyable reality: the Waystar Studios scenes in Season 4, Episode 6 have been filmed on the precise lot and workplaces of Warner Bros. Studio. (Warner Bros. Discovery is the mother or father firm of HBO.)
Brightstar Journey Parks
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Waystar’s Brightstar Journey Parks is an organization that owns and operates a number of theme parks throughout the globe. Most of the characters and mascots featured on the parks, akin to Dirk the Turkey or Doderick the Canine (the topic of certainly one of Lukas Matsson’s offensive tweets) are from motion pictures produced by Waystar Studios, making Brightstar considerably akin to Disney or Common Studios theme parks. In Season 1, Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) is seen present process administration coaching at a Brightstar park in Buffalo, New York. Roman Roy later enrolls in the identical coaching program at a park location in Georgia.
Brightstar Cruise Strains
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Brightstar Cruise Strains, previously often known as Waystar Cruise Strains, is the supply of the scandal, Senate investigations, and coverup seen all through Season 2. The cruise line division relies out of Florida, the place it runs cruises to and from the Caribbean, particularly the Bahamas. Considered one of Brightstar’s ships is named Quantum of the Seas. For a time, Tom Wambsgans was in control of the cruise line division till he moved over to ATN.
Vaulter
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Vaulter is a information aggregation website that Kendall Roy (Jeremy Sturdy) spearheaded for a short time. Though Ken believed within the website’s skill to generate long-term income, Roman argued that it ought to be gutted attributable to low employees productiveness and rumors of unionization efforts. Finally, Logan sides with Roman and orders Ken to fireplace Vaulter’s employees and shut down most of its operations. Vice noticed a whole lot of itself in Vaulter however the website additionally has some real-world similarities to Gawker, which was compelled to file for chapter after infamous right-winger Peter Thiel bankrolled a lawsuit towards it.
StarGo
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StarGo is Waystar’s streaming service that presumably hosts their Waystar Studios productions and ATN applications. It’s repeatedly made enjoyable of for being a awful platform. In what is likely to be a little bit of an inside joke, its title and emblem resemble that of HBO Go, HBO’s streaming platform previous to HBO Max. Its popularity for being a usually terrible service is also a reference to Fox Nation, a platform hated even by Fox’s personal information personalities.
Residing+
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Shortly earlier than his demise, Logan needed to create a luxurious senior dwelling neighborhood known as Residing+. In Season 4, Episode 6, Kendall and Roman think about creating the corporate after their father’s demise. In a taped recording made earlier than his demise, Logan mentions that a few of Waystar Studio’s characters can be featured in Residing+, maybe drawing real-life comparisons to Disney’s plans to create senior housing communities.
Satellites
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In Season 1, Roman is tasked with supervising the launch of a Japanese satellite tv for pc. He rushes the launch date and the rocket blows up. Though not spelled out within the present, it’s possible that Waystar Royco is within the telecommunications enterprise, very similar to Rupert Murdoch’s firm Sky UK. Exploding rockets may additionally be a reference to the so-called “billionaire area race,” a contest between Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson to see who can land on Mars first.