Warner Bros. Discovery Halts Blockbuster Merger Talks: Report
Streaming’s slow, but steady, march towards becoming the very traditional cable it sought to replace has hit a small snag.
As more and more services look to merge and become bigger (and more expensive) to try and rival Netflix, streaming platforms are increasingly looking like (and costing as much as) traditional cable, much to the chagrin of viewers everywhere.
However, not everything has been smooth sailing in streaming’s transformation into cable.
A potential blockbuster of a conglomerate merger between Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global appears to be on the back burner, for the time being.
A CNBC report suggests that WBD’s ongoing financial issues are preventing the company from merging with Paramount.
Specifically, WBD shares have collapsed to a “near a 52-week low,” which has prompted the sudden case of cold feet.
While WBD grapples with its own peculiar future (more on that later), Paramount Global appears to be stuck in a bit of a wait-and-see situation.
Per CNBC, Skydance Media is “performing due diligence” on potentially acquiring Paramount Global’s assets.
Aside from that potential buyout, Paramount Global is also doing some footwork on its end, setting up a special committee to look at all the potential buyout opportunities.
That special committee has even gone so far as to hire its own financial advisor.
One potential blockbuster — a merger with Comcast and the potential bundling of Paramount+ with Peacock — seems to be a long shot, at best.
CNBC notes: “Comcast, the owner of CNBC parent NBCUniversal, isn’t interested in acquiring Paramount Global assets.”
However, Comcast does have some interest in a “potential commercial partnership” with Paramount.
Ironically enough, despite financials appearing to be the primary driver for WBD pulling out of this potential mega-merger, the media titan appears to have a bit more stable footing than Paramount when it comes to streaming.
That’s because, despite a generally poor year financially, WBD actually made history with its Max streaming platform in 2023.
WBD’s Max became the first streaming platform for a Hollywood conglomerate that turned a profit over a full year.
(For WBD, that factoid should also highlight how poorly the rest of its divisions performed in 2023.)
For now, it appears that most major streaming platforms will remain on their own for now.
But given the manner in which Paramount is aggressively shopping its assets, a blockbuster merger feels far more a matter of “when” than “if.”
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