Paramount Skydance plans to combine Paramount+ and HBO Max into one streaming service after it officially takes over Warner Bros. Discovery, the company’s top executive announced Monday.
“We do plan to put the two services together, which today gives us a little over 200 million direct-to-consumer subscribers,” Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison said during an investor call early Monday.
“We think the combined offering, given the amount of content and what we can do from the tech side, really will put us in a position to be able to compete with the most scaled players” in the direct-to-consumer streaming market, Ellison added.
Paramount+ is home to the “Star Trek” franchise and “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan’s popular television shows. HBO Max is the destination for “Game of Thrones,” the Batman saga and recent hits like “Sinners.”
The call came three days after Warner formally signed an agreement to be acquired in a blockbuster deal by Paramount. The deal was inked after Netflix abruptly pulled out of the bidding war for Warner's studio and streaming assets, closing the curtains on a corporate battle that had riveted Hollywood and beyond.
Paramount’s offer of $31 a share values Warner at roughly $77 billion. The takeover bid, factoring in Warner’s debt load, comes to a total of more than $110 billion.
If the Paramount-Warner merger is approved by regulators and shareholders, Ellison would take over a sprawling portfolio of assets that includes the Warner Bros. Pictures film studio, DC Entertainment, HBO and CNN. (Netflix’s bid did not include Warner’s cable channels.)
Ellison is no stranger to the regulatory approval process: Skydance Media acquired Paramount Global last year in a transaction valued at $8 billion, putting it in control of a movie studio, the CBS network and a trove of intellectual property. The deal catapulted him to the upper ranks of modern media moguls.
Monday’s investor call provided the public with an early glimpse at Ellison’s plans for Warner after the merger is complete.
He pledged to releasing 30 movies in theaters a year and vowed that HBO would continue to enjoy the resources and creative independence to “do what it does best.” HBO has long been considered one of the most prestigious brands in entertainment.
“HBO should stay HBO,” Ellison said.
Paramount executives also said they have no plans to spin off or divest the suite of Warner cable channels, which also includes TNT and TBS. Comcast, the parent company of NBC News, recently spun off cable assets such as MSNBC, which has been rebranded as MS NOW, CNBC and E! into a separate entity called Versant.
Ellison — the son of Silicon Valley titan Larry Ellison, a close ally of President Donald Trump — insisted the Paramount-Warner tie-up would “enable us to better compete in today’s rapidly evolving market place,” and lead to a “stronger Hollywood.”
The deal has been met with a mixed reaction in America's movie and television capital, with rank-and-file employees in Los Angeles expressing fear about potential job cuts, a possible pullback in content spending and wider technological disruptions.
