Skydance Closes $110 Billion Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger

Paramount completed its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday, creating a combined entertainment company called Skydance that begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "SKYD."

The transaction ranks among the largest media mergers ever recorded. It unites Paramount+ and HBO Max, the two flagship streaming services, alongside broadcast and cable networks including CBS, CNN, MTV, TBS, Comedy Central, and Food Network. Skydance will also hold rights to franchises such as "The Lord of the Rings," "Game of Thrones," the DC Universe, and "Yellowstone."

David Ellison, who merged his Skydance Media with Paramount last year, now controls the enlarged studio. The Ellison family remains Skydance's largest shareholder, backed by the wealth of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, David Ellison's father.

The new Skydance corporation will generate nearly $70 billion in annual revenue, the company said.

What does the deal actually transfer?

The merged entity brings together Warner Bros.' film and television studios, HBO, CNN, and Discovery's cable networks with Paramount Pictures, CBS, Showtime, BET, and the Paramount+ platform. Combined content libraries span decades of film and television, plus the intellectual property needed to fight subscriber churn in a market where Netflix, Amazon, Apple, and Disney remain entrenched.

Skydance's near-$70 billion revenue base would place it among the world's largest media companies by sales. Profitability details for the combined entity have not been disclosed in Tuesday's announcement.

How did Paramount beat Netflix?

Paramount announced in February that it would acquire Warner Bros. following a bidding contest with Netflix. Netflix had previously signed an agreement to purchase Warner Bros.' film and television studios and its streaming business, excluding cable networks.

Paramount sweetened its offer by promising shareholders additional cash if the deal failed to close by a specified deadline. Paramount also agreed to cover the breakup fee Warner Bros. owed Netflix for terminating that earlier agreement.

What legal hurdles stood in the way?

The merger closed after settlements with a coalition of U.S. states and a Hollywood writers' union cleared the main legal obstacles. The states' coalition had probed competitive effects in pay television and streaming, while the writers' union focused on the impact of consolidation on credits, residuals, and overall employment.

Neither the size of the state settlement nor the precise terms of the union agreement appeared in Tuesday's release.

What does management say?

"Today is a historic day, not just for Skydance but for our entire industry," David Ellison said in a statement. "From the start, our ambition was to bring these two storied studios together and create a stronger competitor, with the talent, resources, and reach to tell great stories in every genre, on every platform, for audiences everywhere. Our focus now turns to the future: building a company that empowers creatives, entertains audiences and rewards shareholders. We couldn't be more excited to get to work."

What changes for the industry?

The merger concentrates film, television, cable, and streaming holdings under a single corporate roof in the same quarter that Netflix reported its largest quarterly subscriber gain in two years. Skydance now controls two of the four most-watched premium streaming services in the United States, along with cable channels producing the kind of cash flow that pure-play streaming operations still struggle to match.

Wall Street will look first to Skydance's first quarterly report as a combined company for evidence of the cost synergies promised during the bidding battle. Management has signaled plans to integrate streaming technology stacks, rationalize overlapping production operations, and consolidate advertising sales — actions that will determine whether the $110 billion purchase price delivers the returns Ellison pitched to Paramount shareholders.