When two companies merge, regulators will sometimes require that the new entity shed some of its properties, if it creates an unfair competitive advantage of some sort. For instance, when one radio station conglomerate buys another, they might have to shed 50 networks in media outlets where they already own three stations and the acquisition would give them another four. Sometimes such acquisitions result in too much market coverage, or redundant properties.

Warner Bros owns both Looney Tunes and Hanna Barbara. These are pretty compatible properties, in the overall. Both have a lot of cartoons with shorter segments aimed at younger audience. They could even do things like put them in the same “universe” for their next project like Tiny Toons, in effect making Huckleberry Hound a Looney Tunes character. Why not?

The problem is that the most popular Hanna Barbara property (except, perhaps, Scooby Doo) already has a Looney Tunes counterpart: Tom & Jerry. Does a universe with Sylvester and Tweety really need a Tom & Jerry? Huckleberry Hound meets Foghorn J Leghorn has some appeal, Tom meeting Sylvester would just be weird.

On the other hand, Disney doesn’t really have as good a counterpart for this. So, in the same way that Verizon had to shed itself of some of the Alltel markets when they bought Allel, maybe Warner Bros should have had to shop Tom & Jerry (or Sylvester and Tweety) over to Disney.