Paramount Closes $110 Billion Warner Bros. Merger, Renamed Skydance

The $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Paramount Skydance officially closed on October 6, capping a bruising, year-long pursuit that survived a hostile bidding war with Netflix, a temporary restraining order from a federal judge, and a landmark antitrust lawsuit from twelve state attorneys general. The combined company — one of the largest media mergers in history — will operate under a new corporate name: Skydance134.

The transaction, which valued Warner Bros. Discovery at roughly $110 billion in enterprise value including debt, unites two of Hollywood's five major film studios, the CBS and CNN news operations, broadcast network CBS, dozens of cable channels including Nickelodeon, MTV, TNT, HGTV, Comedy Central and Food Network, and two major subscription streaming services, Paramount+ and HBO Max148. Discovery shareholders received approximately $31 per share in cash at closing — a figure that reflects the $31 base price plus a daily "ticking fee" that began accruing after September 3019. Skydance Class B shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SKYD on the same day, while Discovery shares stopped trading on Nasdaq13.

A Deal Forged in a Bidding War

The road to closing was anything but smooth. Warner Bros. Discovery rejected three successive takeover bids from Paramount Skydance in the fall of 2025, with the third offer coming in just under $24 per share7. In November 2025, Comcast, Netflix and Paramount all submitted formal bids — but only Paramount's offer covered the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery, including its declining linear TV networks, while Comcast and Netflix chased the film studio and HBO Max alone7.

When the board endorsed Netflix's lower but previously signed agreement, Paramount went hostile: on December 8, 2025, it took an all-cash $30-per-share offer directly to shareholders, with CEO David Ellison declaring "We put the company in play"715. Paramount ultimately won by sweetening the price to $31 per share, covering the $2.8 billion breakup fee Warner Bros. would have owed Netflix, and bringing in Ellison's father — Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison — to personally guarantee funding910. A definitive merger agreement followed on February 27, 2026, and shareholders approved it that April7.

The Antitrust Battle That Nearly Stopped It

The deal's most serious threat came not from regulators in Washington but from state capitols. In June 2026, the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division approved the acquisition outright — notably without requiring any divestitures, behavioral remedies or concessions167. But on July 13, twelve Democratic state attorneys general, led by California's Rob Bonta, sued under Section 7 of the Clayton Act to block the merger1815.

The states' core argument was concentration: the combined entity would control roughly 27% of widely released theatrical film distribution, over 30% of the top-grossing film market, and about 27% of basic cable affiliate fees nationwide — leverage that could raise ticket prices, inflate cable bills and trigger programming blackouts19. The Writers Guild of America filed its own parallel suit in July, arguing that a single mega-buyer of film and TV programming would suppress writers' wages and cut output1615.

Federal Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the Northern District of California gave the plaintiffs real teeth. In July she found the states had raised valid legal questions, issued a temporary restraining order blocking the merger, and wrote that the "lessening of competition constitutes an irreparable injury"1914. Paramount then stipulated it would not close the deal until a ruling — or June 2027, whichever came first — while facing a ticking fee of roughly $7 million per day beginning October 1715. The pressure escalated further when Paramount demanded the states and WGA post a $1.88 billion bond to cover those costs, a demand the Justice Department backed with a statement of interest in September1512.

A Settlement Short of Divestiture

The standoff broke on September 21, 2026, when Paramount and the twelve states announced a settlement. Crucially, it fell short of the structural remedies critics wanted — no divestitures of networks or studios were required1216. Instead, the consent decree imposes five years of behavioral commitments: the merged company must release at least 30 films theatrically in each of the first two post-closing years (rising to 32 annually in years three through five), with a 45-day exclusive theatrical window before home viewing110. It must add at least $1.5 billion in U.S. film production spending over five years — roughly $300 million annually above 2025 levels113. The Paramount lot on Melrose Avenue and the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank cannot be sold or closed817. Paramount and Warner Bros. cable portfolios must be negotiated separately with pay-TV distributors for five years, with potential divestiture of BET, VH1, Comedy Central, Smithsonian and other channels as a penalty for noncompliance113. The company also agreed to a $47.5 million workforce fund and to honor existing collective bargaining agreements118.

Judge Martínez-Olguín approved the consent decree on September 30, calling it a "reasonable factual and legal resolution of the dispute" and noting that settlements routinely "reflect a compromise" rather than full remediation of alleged harms1415. Her approval did not come without friction — advocacy groups urged rejection, arguing the settlement gave residents of the suing states "virtually nothing"14. A last-ditch effort to stop the closing at the Supreme Court failed when Justice Elena Kagan denied an emergency application from a group of consumers without comment on October 514.

The WGA settled separately, winning a five-year prohibition on layoffs at CBS News' broadcast team and a $17.5 million contribution to the union's health fund plus up to $6 million in legal costs — while pointedly stating it still believed the merger would "cause damage to writers and the industry at large"111318.

Ellison's Empire — and Its Risks

At 43, David Ellison — son of Oracle's Larry Ellison and the largest shareholder in the enterprise his family bankrolls — now controls one of the world's largest entertainment companies, spanning franchises from Harry Potter, Batman and Superman to Top Gun, Mission: Impossible, Yellowstone and Game of Thrones39. He will serve as chairman and CEO alongside co-CEO Ynon Kreiz, the former Mattel chief who will run day-to-day operations and lead the integration113. Casey Bloys of HBO will steer the combined streaming operation, and CNN's Mark Thompson and CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss keep their roles63.

The financial picture is sobering. The combined company reports roughly $65 billion in annual revenue and more than 200 million streaming subscribers, but it will also carry approximately $80 billion in debt59. Ellison has targeted at least $6 billion in annualized cost synergies within three years, much of it from combining streaming technologies and cloud providers — cuts that analysts expect will cost jobs across Hollywood, a prospect the co-CEOs implicitly acknowledged in an employee email warning of "difficult decisions that affect our workforce"138.

The rebrand to Skydance carries its own symbolism. Ellison said the name was chosen so Paramount and Warner Bros. could retain distinct identities rather than be absorbed into a new brand37. Analysts read it differently — as a marker of how thoroughly the company now belongs to him, a vehicle for imposing his strategy and culture on Hollywood's most storied assets3.

The bet is enormous, and the antitrust settlement binds it tightly: Ellison cannot simply cut his way to profitability, because the consent decree obligates sustained theatrical output and production spending even as he services $80 billion in debt and integrates two sprawling organizations5. As one Forbes analysis bluntly framed it, if he succeeds he will have done what AOL, AT&T and Discovery's previous acquirers could not; if he fails, Skydance becomes merely the latest name on a long list of companies that tried and failed to make a Warner Bros. acquisition work5.