The article bullet point referencing WB Discovery could mislead some into thinking that this takeover is only for the Discovery portion, but that's not the case. $30 would not be for Discovery only (as Netflix's bid is $27.75), it's for the whole kit and caboodle. Yes there are two entities, but/and Paramount wants it all, and the takeover intent is for both.
That's conventionally called "studios+streaming" because the Warner Bros studio/brand is one of WBD's crown jewels. The way you've written it, someone could infer everything but HBO Max was going into "other." That's incorrect.
Isn't this submission about Warner Bros Discover, which is a different entity? Seems to be about TV, not movies. But maybe I misunderstand, I did spend a whole of 20 seconds to skim the article...
No. Breakup fes are for when the buyer backs out or theere are external forces that prevent the merger. You can also have a breakup fee if the buyee wants out but that's a different thing. In this case it's Paramount saying "we'll up out government-blocks-the-sale fee from $2.xbn to $5bn" which is saying they have a lot of confidence the merger will go through.
> in this case it's Paramount saying "we'll up out government-blocks-the-sale fee from $2.xbn to $5bn" which is saying they have a lot of confidence the merger will go through
No.
Paramount has nothing to do with these numbers, which both come from the Plan of Merger among Netflix, Warner and others [1].
Paramount's bid constitutes an Acquisition Proposal under § 6.2(c). It is a "proposal, offer or indication of interest" from Paramount, a party who is not "Buyer and its Affiliates," which "is structured to result in such Person or group of Persons (or their stockholders), directly or indirectly, acquiring beneficial ownership of 20% or more of the Company’s consolidated total assets."
Given it "is publicly proposed" after the date of the Plan of Merger and "prior to the Company Stockholder Meeting," it is a Company Qualifying Transaction (8.3(D)(x)).
If 8.3(D)(y) is then satisfied (a condition I got bored jumping around to pin down–if thar be dragons, they be here) and Warner consummates the Company Qualifying Transaction or "enters into a definitive agreement providing for" it (8.3(a)(D)(z)(2), the Buyer can terminate the Plan of Merger under 8.1(b)(iii). That, in turn, triggers the Company Termination Fee of $2.8bn, which is separate from the Regulatory Termination Fee of $5.8bn Netflix would have to pay Warner if other shit happened.
They've just about said as much. They thought they had a friendly bid in the works just before WB announced a more exclusive friendly bidding process with Netflix. Definitely some drama going on there.
"Affinity Partners, the private equity firm led by Jared Kushner, is part of Paramount's hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros Discovery, according to a regulatory filing."
Thank you, I had no idea how this was politically related, and honestly cannot keep track of all the corruption these days anyways. How does anyone? This is pretty much a genuine question.
Viewing this acquisition in terms of simple revenue alone is like positing Musk bought Twitter for its ad revenue. Total information control is priceless.
(In case anyone hasn't kept up with the plutocratic oligarchy in the US: Oracle's Larry Ellison currently owns Paramount (since July 2024), and Warner Bros. Entertainment owns CNN. This isn't explained in the CNBC OP: David Ellison is Larry's son and the token CEO).
Except there is robust competition in media —be it news, social, etc.
I think the political angle in terms of motivation is overstated. In terms of closing the deal though, it’s huge. David Ellison has been producing movies for quite some time. So his desire to become a big time player in that space would be a believable motivation. But he can use his father’s connections to Trump to sink the Netflix bid (or create enough FUD to convince shareholders to favor his bid).
I mean it's not even politics in the way most people think about it—like this is just blatant corruption. Trump moved in and said this is my swamp.
We're not even gonna get a good investigative journalism podcast about the corruption because it's just right there in front of you. There's not much to uncover.
I think it gives Netflix an advantage. When it comes up in front of a judge he'll note the obvious conflict of interest and Trump's idiotic pronouncements, like the fact that he said he will be personally involved, and rule for Netflix.
HA hardly. Balance that against two of the top four streaming platforms (youtube, hbo, disney, netflix) trying to merge, probably should worry about some anti-trust there, but not under this administration.
They tilt like everyone else - maybe the chaos and mayhem behind the last few years of this industry mean the old guard is finally failing, and we'll see meaningful copyright reform and sanity in our lifetime.
Are you betting on the content conglomerate bidding tens of billions, or the nepo baby LBO shop wearing the corpse of a movie studio as a salmon hat to spur copyright reform?
Paramount broke its tradition of barely treading water [1] in 2023 by booking multibillion cable losses [2] before being acquired in a de facto LBO [3] at half the price it traded at in 2005 [4]. (90% off its 2021 peak, though that may have been meme-y.)
Paramount Skydance–the one bidding for Warner–has $15bn of debt on $600mm operating cash flow supporting $15bn of equity trading above book value while still posting losses [5].
The rest of the world is the one thing that gives me hope in this regard, really.
It feels like year by year, Asia, even China, is becoming more and more culturally relevant. Western media is just too damn stagnant.
Hollywood used to be known as possibly the most important cultural powerhouse history has seen. It might still be that, but it certainly doesn't feel like it anymore.
> My real problem with the show, however, wasn’t the low IQ traitor, it was that the new ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air. THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP, who just paid me millions of Dollars for FAKE REPORTING about your favorite President, ME! Since they bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE! Oh well, far worse things can happen.
The most concerning aspect for me is the obvious and conspicuously-timed consolidation of these companies under David Ellison. Within the past few months he's taken control of Paramount, CBS, The Free Press, and now he's working on Warner Bros.
From everything I've seen he's basically an ideologue, and has already re-structured CBS to align with his vision.
Just something that seems very out in the open yet kind of pushed off to the side.
I feel like at some level, it will be much easier to just pir.... I mean... train LLMs based on their content. Yeah. LLM training. That's acceptable. So it really doesn't matter who wins, we'll just perform LLM training.
I thought I read somewhere paramount is in survival mode, avoiding risky projects and focusing on reliable projects. This is surprising indeed.
Amazon took MGM, maybe netflix can take over paramount after it takes over warner bros?
I know people have strong opinions on this, but both from studios like warner and netflix, their quality has been subpar, i don't think this will change much in terms of risk taking. There used to be lots of more flops but lots of really good blockbusters as well. Now there are a lot less of both, it is profitable but enshittified.
Paramount sold themselves to Skydance who now get referred to as Paramount because Paramount is the older, stabler brand. That sale is generally considered to have pulled Paramount out of survival mode, though it will probably be at least a few more quarters before it the results are seen.
(Arguably, Skydance's ideas for Paramount are too similar to the weird Paramount and CBS divorce era, that I find it hard to believe Skydance is less wrong of a steward for Paramount than Paramount was before the consolidation. But a lot of that opinion comes from bias as a Star Trek fan and Skydance's approach seems to return to the semi-broken idea that Star Trek seems to be better as a film franchise than a TV franchise.)
Skydance owning both Paramount and Warner Brothers might be very concerning in terms of IP consolidation alone.
Skydance is also known as the then-obscure company that picked up Pixar head John Lasseter when his reputation for being overly affectionate got him pushed out of Disney.
It's one of the Ellison family's forays into media. David's sister/Larry's daughter Megan has Annapurna. Annapurna produced the Spike Jonze's AI romance "Her" and many of the the most prominent indie games of the last decade (Outer Wilds, Cocoon, Stray, Kentucky Route Zero, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Journey, Donut Country…).
> who's gonna produce that once Paramount owns HBO?
Netflix.
If they win, they own HBO. If they lose, they have a beef with Ellison.
(Speaking out of my ass here. But I think there is broad underappreciation of how intensely a lot of Hollywood creatives do not want to work for a rightwinger. I imagine Netflix, Disney and others will have a bit of a bonanza over the coming years of picking up disaffecteds from Paramount et al, even assuming the latter don't wind up in bankruptcy.)
I have seen several aspects of entertainment in my life get squeezed for money (Magic The Gathering, movies, TV streaming, video games) and I have decided to basically quit any form of entertainment which is solely controlled by large corporations.
People get extremely angry when Magic The Gathering charges more money, for more exclusive products, in more frequently occurring releases. Rage, grief, and sorrow over an aspect of your life that you allow a singular company to control. It doesn’t have to be this way. You can walk away , and find more fulfilling activities that you control.
This is what the kids call “touching grass”.
At this point I don’t watch TV, I don’t watch movies, I don’t play Magic The Gathering, I only play video games over 10 years old.
As I have gotten older I see now that this entertainment is junk food that replaces real satisfaction and accomplishment in life. Humans now more than ever have the opportunity to learn and do anything, but instead they spend it squandered on a shadow of real life.
> As I have gotten older I see now that this entertainment is junk food that replaces real satisfaction and accomplishment in life
A bit too condescending if you ask me. People are free to choose to spend time on things they find entertaining and that has no bearing on whether you find it "junk food" or whether the company producing the entertainment is trying to squeeze every penny they can out of it.
Maybe? Paramount was already deep in shuffling a lot of movies to Paramount+ exclusives, and new parent company Skydance seems to have first-look deals with both Apple TV and Netflix who may or may not ask for movie projects to be streaming exclusive.
(Apple TV is nearly as bad at theatrical runs as Netflix, though admittedly some of Apple's biggest "mistakes" are in presenting things beyond Oscar-bait such as Argyle that "box office flopped", but yet it is far better for physical theaters that they tried and as a fan of physical theaters I want to keep seeing them trying.)
I'm curious how often tactics like this work. It is essentially asking the Warner stockholders to act against the wishes of their elected board.
It seems the main thrust of the pitch is "we're friends with Trump therefore more likely to win approval" which is so deeply gross but also probably persuasive to many. Jared Kushner is involved in the Paramount bid so you know they're greasing the right wheels.
Hostile takeovers hit their zenith "in the 1980s" [1], when about 50% of attempts succeeded [2].
Since then, Delaware courts have become more Board friendly (specifically, friendly to takeover defences), antitrust made "it more difficult for companies with large market shares to acquire competitors without some level of cooperation from the target company," and stocks became more expensive [1]. (I'm struggling to find recent literature on frequencies.)
Compared to the 1980s and pre-Covid hostile takeover zenith, stocks remain expensive. But money is chaper, particularly for the politically connected. Antitrust is a wild card. And Warner has reduced takeover defences given it's already in the market for a sale (Revlon duties).
I can’t even use Paramount+ at home. Have network wide ad and tracking filters on (simple NextDNS presets, nothing crazy), and while others work, Paramount+ doesn’t. Makes me wonder what they are doing to get blocked. Kind of wish neither were getting WB.
I've had the same issue and go so far as to remove the streaming stuff from my Pihole to make sure it wasn't a DNS filtering issue. Paramount+ app still is sketchy as hell sometimes. Usually won't work on my AppleTV, but works on phones and stuff.
Maybe we're all doing it wrong. Americans could instead be making "donations" to get the legal outcomes they want under this regime. We're not accustomed to the 3rd wold paradigm though it's well established elsewhere.
Paramount bids $30 all cash for all of Warner Brothers Discovery. Netflix bids $27.75 “for Warner’s studio and HBO Max streaming business” only [1]. (“$23.25 in cash and $4.50 in shares” [2].)
The latter leaves behind “sports and news television brands around the world including CNN, TNT Sports in the U.S., and Discovery, top free-to-air channels across Europe, and digital products such as the profitable Discovery+ streaming service and Bleacher Report (B/R)” [3]. (Paramount is effectively bidding $5.9bn for these assets.)
Note that Zaslav, Warner’s CEO, is a prominent donor to Democrats [4], as is Reed Hastings, Netflix’s co-founder [5]. (Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-CEO with Greg Peters, is mixed, leaning Dem [6]. No clue on the latter.) Ellison is a staunch Trump ally. The partisan tinge will be difficult to ignore.
It has really strange bugs like with an hour left of a Champions League match it thought it had reached the end credits of the show and tried to automatically start showing something else. Was confusing figuring out how to tell it I wanted to really watch the "end credits" which was the last hour of the soccer contest.
That's interesting as the Champions League is the most compelling thing for me to consider P+ subscription. Unfortunately for P+ it just hasn't been compelling enough. I feel for the Peacock subscription to watch EPL, but even with that subscription there are matches only on USA and maybe also on Telemundo. I can only imagine P+ doing similar, and I'm just not here for it
Eh, I liked it, but canceled my service after they made a bribe to the current president to approve one of their acquisitions. I like Star Trek plenty, but not enough to support anti-American businesses like Paramount.
I subscribed to SkyShowtime (Euro joint venture from Paramount) for a few months (it was cheap) ... then I realized it doesn't work on Linux... cancelled.
The Paramount+ user interface on my Samsung TV is horrendous.
It frequently crashes after displaying ads, forcing me to re-open the app and watch ads again.
When watching ads does succeed (all 3 minutes of them…) and playback of my show begins, it shows the enormous pause button, the giant fade-to-black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, and covers up the subtitles, as though I had pressed ‘Play’.
And trying to pause requires you to press the pause button TWICE.
I tried to play a series, but instead of starting from the last-played episode + 1, it always plays the most recent episode since it’s a rewatch. This happened every time until I got caught up.
So I strongly disagree. If only to be able to watch all of this content without all of frustrating design flaws.
EDIT: They also end each episode with 2-3 minutes of ads. So you had to exit the show, then re-enter to not get hit with two ad breaks in a row.
IMO no 3rd party app is worth using on those devices.
My parents pay over $300/mo for an Xfinity bundle. It includes everything (phone, internet, and all streaming services on one bill)
The paramount+ app on the Xfinity box took TEN MINUTES to load a show. This is after crashing three times back to the logo.
Xfinity warns that it’s a 3P app and they aren’t responsible for it but it should be criminal to take the money and subject elderly people to this under spec hardware. Even live sports will pause and stutter.
The best outcome would be for all of the bids to fail, all the streaming services would bleed money due to people sick of the siloing, and for there to be multiple streaming services competing on experience because they all have access to the same catalog.
The second best outcome would be the cartoon villain Larry not getting what he wants.
Which is why the model that would actually be good for consumers and the model that absolutely no content producer wants which is splitting content creation from distribution isn't going to happen. Let a bunch of companies compete over being the best streaming platform and then let those companies all compete for licensing deals for content.
I think a big copyright holders in a strange way actually don't want a repeat of cable. They want all content to be exclusive by default to their own streaming service.
When you make something (eg TV shows), you might also want a direct relationship with your customer (eg viewer). Consequently, A platform where you get to choose how to present and celebrate the stories seems like a reasonable thing.
In the US, the film industry originally worked like the streaming industry does today. Besides just creating films, the major studios distributed them through the theaters they owned. If you wanted to see a Paramount film you had to go to a Paramount owned theater, if you wanted to see an MGM film you had to go to an MGM owned theater, and so on. In 1948, this distribution scheme was ruled to be in violation of antitrust law and the studios were forced to divest themselves of their theaters. Now you can see major films in any studio and the theaters have to compete on price and amenities. I don't see why the same logic shouldn't apply to streaming services.
I want Netflix to lose. After living with their binge release schedule for however long now I think we're all worse off for it. So I want less of the industry to use it.
You don't need the streaming service though, you can just do without or find other methods of obtaining their content. It's not like food, electricity, or water where you may have no actual options or very limited options. Movies and shows are wants, not needs, and people can walk away and fill the time some other way.
Saying everyone should just quit streaming and go touch grass or read a book is not a productive recommendation. It's been tried for decades and fails because people really like TV and Movies. Given that, the discussion here needs to start from the assumption that people will continue to watch TV and movies and suffer meaningful quality of life impacts when they do not.
Once Netflix buys all of these companies, you won't ever be able to watch a WB movie without a $25 netflix sub per month. (and yeah, when they are done buying all the competition that's what the monthly will be.
> Once Netflix buys all of these companies, you won't ever be able to watch a WB movie without a $25 netflix sub per month. (and yeah, when they are done buying all the competition that's what the monthly will be.
That's kind of a silly argument. "People are better off paying $100+/month for 4+ streaming services than $25/month for one that has everything."
If your argument were that you'd have to pay more than the current combined cost, it'd be a better argument against mergers. Arguing against something because it's a better deal is just strange.
It's not that silly of an argument when you factor in Blu-Ray as the other side of "won't be able to watch a WB movie without". Right now the only Netflix "Exclusives" you can find on Blu-Ray are the ones they source from Sony, Warner Brothers, or Paramount. If they own Warner Brothers one of those Blu-Ray sources goes away.
Instead of a one-time Blu-Ray purchase for ~$25 for a movie to watch as many times as you'd like, it's an ongoing subscription for $25/month. If you only want to watch that one movie in two different calendar months, you've easily doubled your spend.
(Yes, it is still apples-to-oranges because you may watch more than one movie in a month, but the flipside is that the $25/month is a variable catalog fee. The movie you want to watch may be "vaulted" that second month you want to go watch it. With Blu-Ray you control your film catalog, with Netflix some finance team does.)
(Also, yes, easy to forget Blu-Ray in this debate because Blu-Ray is dying/dead, especially in physical retail with Target and Best Buy dropping its sections. You can also substitute a lot of the same arguments here with arguments for Movies Anywhere and/or iTunes Store.)
thats not how most people do streaming, they consume everything on netflix - when the content gets stale, they cancel, move to P+, consume for a few months, stale, d+, stale, A+, etc....
1 at a time
I'm never paying any of them, anything, ever again, but I'm sure we'll all get a little fucked somehow. I do hope it triggers more in-fighting amongst the scum of the earth.
Larry Ellison is my named enemy
larry ellison is guilty of all of the things they accuse soros of doing
Does WB have to pay the breakup fee to Netflix if a Paramount hostile takeover succeeds?
It looks like it. $2.8bn by Warner Brothers to Netflix [1].
If the vote looks close, Paramount would be expected to raise their bid to cover that cost.
[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065280/000119312525... 8.3(a)
Yeah, the reverse breakup fee is ~2.6B I believe, but the Paramount takeover doesn't have to succeed for that fee to kick in. WB just has to back out.
Right, but if it does succeed, does it then kick in?
Warner breakup fee is different. 2.8 billion.
This has nothing to do with the Netflix bid.
Warner bros is being divided into the cable TV stations + discover channel stations and the movie studio and the backlog is separate.
Netflix wants the movie studio + tv back catalog
Netflix also wants HBO / HBO Max. They're just leaving the Discovery stuff.
The article bullet point referencing WB Discovery could mislead some into thinking that this takeover is only for the Discovery portion, but that's not the case. $30 would not be for Discovery only (as Netflix's bid is $27.75), it's for the whole kit and caboodle. Yes there are two entities, but/and Paramount wants it all, and the takeover intent is for both.
Because WB owns what is left of Newline, that would include LotR and The Hobbit.
"What's left"?
New Line has been part of Warner since they merged with TBS in the mid 90s.
the split is hbo+streaming platform on one side and pretty much everything else on the other (discovery, cablechannels, cnn)
That's conventionally called "studios+streaming" because the Warner Bros studio/brand is one of WBD's crown jewels. The way you've written it, someone could infer everything but HBO Max was going into "other." That's incorrect.
Isn't this submission about Warner Bros Discover, which is a different entity? Seems to be about TV, not movies. But maybe I misunderstand, I did spend a whole of 20 seconds to skim the article...
No. Breakup fes are for when the buyer backs out or theere are external forces that prevent the merger. You can also have a breakup fee if the buyee wants out but that's a different thing. In this case it's Paramount saying "we'll up out government-blocks-the-sale fee from $2.xbn to $5bn" which is saying they have a lot of confidence the merger will go through.
> in this case it's Paramount saying "we'll up out government-blocks-the-sale fee from $2.xbn to $5bn" which is saying they have a lot of confidence the merger will go through
No.
Paramount has nothing to do with these numbers, which both come from the Plan of Merger among Netflix, Warner and others [1].
Paramount's bid constitutes an Acquisition Proposal under § 6.2(c). It is a "proposal, offer or indication of interest" from Paramount, a party who is not "Buyer and its Affiliates," which "is structured to result in such Person or group of Persons (or their stockholders), directly or indirectly, acquiring beneficial ownership of 20% or more of the Company’s consolidated total assets."
Given it "is publicly proposed" after the date of the Plan of Merger and "prior to the Company Stockholder Meeting," it is a Company Qualifying Transaction (8.3(D)(x)).
If 8.3(D)(y) is then satisfied (a condition I got bored jumping around to pin down–if thar be dragons, they be here) and Warner consummates the Company Qualifying Transaction or "enters into a definitive agreement providing for" it (8.3(a)(D)(z)(2), the Buyer can terminate the Plan of Merger under 8.1(b)(iii). That, in turn, triggers the Company Termination Fee of $2.8bn, which is separate from the Regulatory Termination Fee of $5.8bn Netflix would have to pay Warner if other shit happened.
[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065280/000119312525...
Thanks, this was more the gist of my question.
Sounds like Paramount bosses are bidding in anger.
They've just about said as much. They thought they had a friendly bid in the works just before WB announced a more exclusive friendly bidding process with Netflix. Definitely some drama going on there.
they snoozed they losed
I think the political angle of this should not be discounted
The political angle is the whole ball game
always has been
Some context:
"Affinity Partners, the private equity firm led by Jared Kushner, is part of Paramount's hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros Discovery, according to a regulatory filing."
https://www.axios.com/2025/12/08/jared-kushner-paramount-war...
Thank you, I had no idea how this was politically related, and honestly cannot keep track of all the corruption these days anyways. How does anyone? This is pretty much a genuine question.
are executives breathing? then there is corruption. start following the money and you'll find it, we're in the new gilded age
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46000977 ("Larry Ellison discussed axing CNN hosts with White House in takeover bid talks (theguardian.com)")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46048351 ("Larry Ellison Met with Trump to Discuss Which CNN Reporters They Plan to Fire (techdirt.com)")
Viewing this acquisition in terms of simple revenue alone is like positing Musk bought Twitter for its ad revenue. Total information control is priceless.
(In case anyone hasn't kept up with the plutocratic oligarchy in the US: Oracle's Larry Ellison currently owns Paramount (since July 2024), and Warner Bros. Entertainment owns CNN. This isn't explained in the CNBC OP: David Ellison is Larry's son and the token CEO).
> Total information control is priceless.
Except there is robust competition in media —be it news, social, etc.
I think the political angle in terms of motivation is overstated. In terms of closing the deal though, it’s huge. David Ellison has been producing movies for quite some time. So his desire to become a big time player in that space would be a believable motivation. But he can use his father’s connections to Trump to sink the Netflix bid (or create enough FUD to convince shareholders to favor his bid).
> Except there is robust competition in media —be it news, social, etc.
As of a few years ago, there were six corporations owning 90% of US media: NewsCorp, TimeWarner, Comcast, Disney, Viacom, Sony.
* https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/fs5g0b/more_tha...
* https://techstartups.com/2020/09/18/6-corporations-control-9...
Add to that local channel ownership (like Sinclair) concentration:
* https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/media-consolidation-me...
* https://www.vox.com/2018/4/6/17202824/sinclair-tribune-map
* https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/broadcasters-urge-fcc-to-h...
This is especially true when it comes to investigative journalism, where it may take weeks or months to run down leads and information.
Sure, I would call this robust competition.
I mean it's not even politics in the way most people think about it—like this is just blatant corruption. Trump moved in and said this is my swamp.
We're not even gonna get a good investigative journalism podcast about the corruption because it's just right there in front of you. There's not much to uncover.
I think it gives Netflix an advantage. When it comes up in front of a judge he'll note the obvious conflict of interest and Trump's idiotic pronouncements, like the fact that he said he will be personally involved, and rule for Netflix.
HA hardly. Balance that against two of the top four streaming platforms (youtube, hbo, disney, netflix) trying to merge, probably should worry about some anti-trust there, but not under this administration.
One can only wish to have that amount of money to bid in anger.
Don't worry, it's other peoples' money.
They tilt like everyone else - maybe the chaos and mayhem behind the last few years of this industry mean the old guard is finally failing, and we'll see meaningful copyright reform and sanity in our lifetime.
> and we'll see meaningful copyright reform
Are you betting on the content conglomerate bidding tens of billions, or the nepo baby LBO shop wearing the corpse of a movie studio as a salmon hat to spur copyright reform?
Paramount is dead?
> Paramount is dead?
Paramount broke its tradition of barely treading water [1] in 2023 by booking multibillion cable losses [2] before being acquired in a de facto LBO [3] at half the price it traded at in 2005 [4]. (90% off its 2021 peak, though that may have been meme-y.)
Paramount Skydance–the one bidding for Warner–has $15bn of debt on $600mm operating cash flow supporting $15bn of equity trading above book value while still posting losses [5].
It's not dead. But it's at least necrotic.
[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/cbs:us:net-income
[2] https://www.filmtake.com/distribution/paramounts-financial-t...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Skydance
[4] https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/para/history/
[5] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PSKY/key-statistics/
> we'll see meaningful copyright reform and sanity in our lifetime.
I think there is a better chance of the state collapsing than there is of seeing meaningful IP reform
The state collapsing might effectively be copyright reform at the same time though so there's that?
The rest of the world is the one thing that gives me hope in this regard, really.
It feels like year by year, Asia, even China, is becoming more and more culturally relevant. Western media is just too damn stagnant.
Hollywood used to be known as possibly the most important cultural powerhouse history has seen. It might still be that, but it certainly doesn't feel like it anymore.
Or maybe I'm just getting old.
> year by year, Asia, even China, is becoming more and more culturally relevant
And powerful export sectors.
> [Paramount say Netflix deal] would lead to “a challenging regulatory approval process.”
"Only we have sufficiently greased the current government to get this deal done"
(not a joke) I wonder to what extent the ability to produce a Rush Hour 4 will effect the deal.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/25/trump-pushed-paramount-reviv...
I can't wait to see how Chris Tucker plays it
Stranger than fiction.
They’re both at least trying to play [1].
The wild move for Ellison would be to bid for one of Trump’s crypto projects if the shareholder vote looks like it could fail.
[1] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/netflixs-sarandos-w...
Trump dislikes Paramount, thought?
https://deadline.com/2025/12/trump-paramount-60-minutes-davi...
He did until they paid him off, fired people he doesn't like and his buddy bought it.
Trump stated this today:
> My real problem with the show, however, wasn’t the low IQ traitor, it was that the new ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air. THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP, who just paid me millions of Dollars for FAKE REPORTING about your favorite President, ME! Since they bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE! Oh well, far worse things can happen.
Like Comcast (Philadelphia) acquired NBC/SNL in 2011?
Wasn't there a former Comcast employee as CEO of "X" initially?
Kushner is involved in the money for the Paramount bid
The most concerning aspect for me is the obvious and conspicuously-timed consolidation of these companies under David Ellison. Within the past few months he's taken control of Paramount, CBS, The Free Press, and now he's working on Warner Bros.
From everything I've seen he's basically an ideologue, and has already re-structured CBS to align with his vision.
Just something that seems very out in the open yet kind of pushed off to the side.
Back to the spoils system [1] baby! Hope you have a lot of capital and a tent to camp the White house lawn while you wait for your appointment.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system
Economic consolidation is one thing, consolidating under a malign foreign ideology is another. Definitely worrying.
I feel like at some level, it will be much easier to just pir.... I mean... train LLMs based on their content. Yeah. LLM training. That's acceptable. So it really doesn't matter who wins, we'll just perform LLM training.
I'm LLM training right now!
I thought I read somewhere paramount is in survival mode, avoiding risky projects and focusing on reliable projects. This is surprising indeed.
Amazon took MGM, maybe netflix can take over paramount after it takes over warner bros?
I know people have strong opinions on this, but both from studios like warner and netflix, their quality has been subpar, i don't think this will change much in terms of risk taking. There used to be lots of more flops but lots of really good blockbusters as well. Now there are a lot less of both, it is profitable but enshittified.
Paramount sold themselves to Skydance who now get referred to as Paramount because Paramount is the older, stabler brand. That sale is generally considered to have pulled Paramount out of survival mode, though it will probably be at least a few more quarters before it the results are seen.
(Arguably, Skydance's ideas for Paramount are too similar to the weird Paramount and CBS divorce era, that I find it hard to believe Skydance is less wrong of a steward for Paramount than Paramount was before the consolidation. But a lot of that opinion comes from bias as a Star Trek fan and Skydance's approach seems to return to the semi-broken idea that Star Trek seems to be better as a film franchise than a TV franchise.)
Skydance owning both Paramount and Warner Brothers might be very concerning in terms of IP consolidation alone.
Skydance is also known as the then-obscure company that picked up Pixar head John Lasseter when his reputation for being overly affectionate got him pushed out of Disney.
It's one of the Ellison family's forays into media. David's sister/Larry's daughter Megan has Annapurna. Annapurna produced the Spike Jonze's AI romance "Her" and many of the the most prominent indie games of the last decade (Outer Wilds, Cocoon, Stray, Kentucky Route Zero, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Journey, Donut Country…).
> thought I read somewhere paramount is in survival mode
Paramount's multi-year sale process deserves an HBO miniseries. But at this point, it's a de facto LBO platform for the Ellisons.
But who's gonna produce that once Paramount owns HBO?
> who's gonna produce that once Paramount owns HBO?
Netflix.
If they win, they own HBO. If they lose, they have a beef with Ellison.
(Speaking out of my ass here. But I think there is broad underappreciation of how intensely a lot of Hollywood creatives do not want to work for a rightwinger. I imagine Netflix, Disney and others will have a bit of a bonanza over the coming years of picking up disaffecteds from Paramount et al, even assuming the latter don't wind up in bankruptcy.)
Apple TV will buy it from Sony.
No matter who wins, we lose.
I have seen several aspects of entertainment in my life get squeezed for money (Magic The Gathering, movies, TV streaming, video games) and I have decided to basically quit any form of entertainment which is solely controlled by large corporations.
People get extremely angry when Magic The Gathering charges more money, for more exclusive products, in more frequently occurring releases. Rage, grief, and sorrow over an aspect of your life that you allow a singular company to control. It doesn’t have to be this way. You can walk away , and find more fulfilling activities that you control.
This is what the kids call “touching grass”.
At this point I don’t watch TV, I don’t watch movies, I don’t play Magic The Gathering, I only play video games over 10 years old.
As I have gotten older I see now that this entertainment is junk food that replaces real satisfaction and accomplishment in life. Humans now more than ever have the opportunity to learn and do anything, but instead they spend it squandered on a shadow of real life.
> As I have gotten older I see now that this entertainment is junk food that replaces real satisfaction and accomplishment in life
A bit too condescending if you ask me. People are free to choose to spend time on things they find entertaining and that has no bearing on whether you find it "junk food" or whether the company producing the entertainment is trying to squeeze every penny they can out of it.
Alien vs. Predator Whoever wins... We lose...
The Alien and Predator are now both Disney Princesses. IP consolidation came for them already.
If you like going to a physical theater, a Paramount victory could be slightly less bad.
Maybe? Paramount was already deep in shuffling a lot of movies to Paramount+ exclusives, and new parent company Skydance seems to have first-look deals with both Apple TV and Netflix who may or may not ask for movie projects to be streaming exclusive.
(Apple TV is nearly as bad at theatrical runs as Netflix, though admittedly some of Apple's biggest "mistakes" are in presenting things beyond Oscar-bait such as Argyle that "box office flopped", but yet it is far better for physical theaters that they tried and as a fan of physical theaters I want to keep seeing them trying.)
Eh, I feel like I lose less if Netflix wins
https://archive.is/d71qC
I'm curious how often tactics like this work. It is essentially asking the Warner stockholders to act against the wishes of their elected board.
It seems the main thrust of the pitch is "we're friends with Trump therefore more likely to win approval" which is so deeply gross but also probably persuasive to many. Jared Kushner is involved in the Paramount bid so you know they're greasing the right wheels.
> curious how often tactics like this work
Hostile takeovers hit their zenith "in the 1980s" [1], when about 50% of attempts succeeded [2].
Since then, Delaware courts have become more Board friendly (specifically, friendly to takeover defences), antitrust made "it more difficult for companies with large market shares to acquire competitors without some level of cooperation from the target company," and stocks became more expensive [1]. (I'm struggling to find recent literature on frequencies.)
Compared to the 1980s and pre-Covid hostile takeover zenith, stocks remain expensive. But money is chaper, particularly for the politically connected. Antitrust is a wild card. And Warner has reduced takeover defences given it's already in the market for a sale (Revlon duties).
So...somewhere below 50%?
[1] https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2020/11/08/the-comeback-of-h...
[2] https://faculty.fiu.edu/~daiglerr/pdf/hostile_takeovers.pdf
"Jared Kushner is part of Paramount's hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46195014
And probably also right.
I can’t even use Paramount+ at home. Have network wide ad and tracking filters on (simple NextDNS presets, nothing crazy), and while others work, Paramount+ doesn’t. Makes me wonder what they are doing to get blocked. Kind of wish neither were getting WB.
Most likely as simple as "they use the same servers for content and ads/tracking so you can't block just one part as easily".
I've had the same issue and go so far as to remove the streaming stuff from my Pihole to make sure it wasn't a DNS filtering issue. Paramount+ app still is sketchy as hell sometimes. Usually won't work on my AppleTV, but works on phones and stuff.
For a large enough "donation" the current administration will approve any merger.
Not even large. Trump is cheap. https://www.yahoo.com/news/opinion-makers-turbotax-gave-trum...
FIFA just had to pay for a little trophy
Maybe we're all doing it wrong. Americans could instead be making "donations" to get the legal outcomes they want under this regime. We're not accustomed to the 3rd wold paradigm though it's well established elsewhere.
Paramount bids $30 all cash for all of Warner Brothers Discovery. Netflix bids $27.75 “for Warner’s studio and HBO Max streaming business” only [1]. (“$23.25 in cash and $4.50 in shares” [2].)
The latter leaves behind “sports and news television brands around the world including CNN, TNT Sports in the U.S., and Discovery, top free-to-air channels across Europe, and digital products such as the profitable Discovery+ streaming service and Bleacher Report (B/R)” [3]. (Paramount is effectively bidding $5.9bn for these assets.)
Note that Zaslav, Warner’s CEO, is a prominent donor to Democrats [4], as is Reed Hastings, Netflix’s co-founder [5]. (Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-CEO with Greg Peters, is mixed, leaning Dem [6]. No clue on the latter.) Ellison is a staunch Trump ally. The partisan tinge will be difficult to ignore.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/business/media/paramount-makes-hostile-t...
[2] https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-to-acquire-warner-...
[3] https://www.wbd.com/news/warner-bros-discovery-separate-two-...
[4] https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=david+...
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/us/politics/reed-hastings...
[6] https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=Ted+Sa...
I must be thte only one who like Paramount+
Honestly would rather have the Warner Bros content over there than on Netflix.
It has really strange bugs like with an hour left of a Champions League match it thought it had reached the end credits of the show and tried to automatically start showing something else. Was confusing figuring out how to tell it I wanted to really watch the "end credits" which was the last hour of the soccer contest.
That's interesting as the Champions League is the most compelling thing for me to consider P+ subscription. Unfortunately for P+ it just hasn't been compelling enough. I feel for the Peacock subscription to watch EPL, but even with that subscription there are matches only on USA and maybe also on Telemundo. I can only imagine P+ doing similar, and I'm just not here for it
So far all the Champions League games have been available on the app. Serie A is a nice bonus, with a few other competitions as well.
EPL requiring both Peacock and a cable subscription to watch all of the games is extremely annoying. But I do it anyway.
All of those combined let me watch all the Arsenal games except FA and Carabao Cup.
I believe a combined Hulu+Disney+ESPN gets those, maybe. I know I've seen something via ESPN, but those would be the last 2 I pay attention
Eh, I liked it, but canceled my service after they made a bribe to the current president to approve one of their acquisitions. I like Star Trek plenty, but not enough to support anti-American businesses like Paramount.
I subscribed to SkyShowtime (Euro joint venture from Paramount) for a few months (it was cheap) ... then I realized it doesn't work on Linux... cancelled.
Once they ended 'Lower Decks' I was out.
The Paramount+ user interface on my Samsung TV is horrendous.
It frequently crashes after displaying ads, forcing me to re-open the app and watch ads again.
When watching ads does succeed (all 3 minutes of them…) and playback of my show begins, it shows the enormous pause button, the giant fade-to-black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, and covers up the subtitles, as though I had pressed ‘Play’.
And trying to pause requires you to press the pause button TWICE.
I tried to play a series, but instead of starting from the last-played episode + 1, it always plays the most recent episode since it’s a rewatch. This happened every time until I got caught up.
So I strongly disagree. If only to be able to watch all of this content without all of frustrating design flaws.
EDIT: They also end each episode with 2-3 minutes of ads. So you had to exit the show, then re-enter to not get hit with two ad breaks in a row.
IMO no 3rd party app is worth using on those devices.
My parents pay over $300/mo for an Xfinity bundle. It includes everything (phone, internet, and all streaming services on one bill)
The paramount+ app on the Xfinity box took TEN MINUTES to load a show. This is after crashing three times back to the logo.
Xfinity warns that it’s a 3P app and they aren’t responsible for it but it should be criminal to take the money and subject elderly people to this under spec hardware. Even live sports will pause and stutter.
I brought popcorn, who are we rooting for?
The best outcome would be for all of the bids to fail, all the streaming services would bleed money due to people sick of the siloing, and for there to be multiple streaming services competing on experience because they all have access to the same catalog.
The second best outcome would be the cartoon villain Larry not getting what he wants.
> and for there to be multiple streaming services competing on experience because they all have access to the same catalog.
That's a weird way to write "and for us to go back to owning copies of movies instead of just renting them."
I honestly don't think cbs paramount would be any better, if anything, wb content would be further paywalled and tiered off
Which is why the model that would actually be good for consumers and the model that absolutely no content producer wants which is splitting content creation from distribution isn't going to happen. Let a bunch of companies compete over being the best streaming platform and then let those companies all compete for licensing deals for content.
I think a big copyright holders in a strange way actually don't want a repeat of cable. They want all content to be exclusive by default to their own streaming service.
When you make something (eg TV shows), you might also want a direct relationship with your customer (eg viewer). Consequently, A platform where you get to choose how to present and celebrate the stories seems like a reasonable thing.
In the US, the film industry originally worked like the streaming industry does today. Besides just creating films, the major studios distributed them through the theaters they owned. If you wanted to see a Paramount film you had to go to a Paramount owned theater, if you wanted to see an MGM film you had to go to an MGM owned theater, and so on. In 1948, this distribution scheme was ruled to be in violation of antitrust law and the studios were forced to divest themselves of their theaters. Now you can see major films in any studio and the theaters have to compete on price and amenities. I don't see why the same logic shouldn't apply to streaming services.
I want Netflix to lose. After living with their binge release schedule for however long now I think we're all worse off for it. So I want less of the industry to use it.
You are not forced to buy their product, or to buy into their schedule.
You can only vote with your feet if you can step somewhere else. We are watching locations for your feet to go shrink in real time.
You don't need the streaming service though, you can just do without or find other methods of obtaining their content. It's not like food, electricity, or water where you may have no actual options or very limited options. Movies and shows are wants, not needs, and people can walk away and fill the time some other way.
Saying everyone should just quit streaming and go touch grass or read a book is not a productive recommendation. It's been tried for decades and fails because people really like TV and Movies. Given that, the discussion here needs to start from the assumption that people will continue to watch TV and movies and suffer meaningful quality of life impacts when they do not.
Once Netflix buys all of these companies, you won't ever be able to watch a WB movie without a $25 netflix sub per month. (and yeah, when they are done buying all the competition that's what the monthly will be.
> Once Netflix buys all of these companies, you won't ever be able to watch a WB movie without a $25 netflix sub per month. (and yeah, when they are done buying all the competition that's what the monthly will be.
That's kind of a silly argument. "People are better off paying $100+/month for 4+ streaming services than $25/month for one that has everything."
If your argument were that you'd have to pay more than the current combined cost, it'd be a better argument against mergers. Arguing against something because it's a better deal is just strange.
It's not that silly of an argument when you factor in Blu-Ray as the other side of "won't be able to watch a WB movie without". Right now the only Netflix "Exclusives" you can find on Blu-Ray are the ones they source from Sony, Warner Brothers, or Paramount. If they own Warner Brothers one of those Blu-Ray sources goes away.
Instead of a one-time Blu-Ray purchase for ~$25 for a movie to watch as many times as you'd like, it's an ongoing subscription for $25/month. If you only want to watch that one movie in two different calendar months, you've easily doubled your spend.
(Yes, it is still apples-to-oranges because you may watch more than one movie in a month, but the flipside is that the $25/month is a variable catalog fee. The movie you want to watch may be "vaulted" that second month you want to go watch it. With Blu-Ray you control your film catalog, with Netflix some finance team does.)
(Also, yes, easy to forget Blu-Ray in this debate because Blu-Ray is dying/dead, especially in physical retail with Target and Best Buy dropping its sections. You can also substitute a lot of the same arguments here with arguments for Movies Anywhere and/or iTunes Store.)
thats not how most people do streaming, they consume everything on netflix - when the content gets stale, they cancel, move to P+, consume for a few months, stale, d+, stale, A+, etc.... 1 at a time
That's what some people do, the average household (per polling) has 4+ video service subscriptions.
It will be $50 soon enough if this goes through
definitely not Ellison Jr lol
Ah that Ellison, didn't make the connection.
I'm never paying any of them, anything, ever again, but I'm sure we'll all get a little fucked somehow. I do hope it triggers more in-fighting amongst the scum of the earth.