Paramount Skydance plans to combine Paramount+ and HBO Max into a single streaming service after it officially acquires Warner Bros. Discovery, the company’s top executive announced Monday.
“We plan to bring the two services together, which today gives us just over 200 million direct-to-consumer subscribers,” Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison said during an investor call Monday morning.
“We believe that the combined offering, given the amount of content and what we can do from a technological standpoint, will really put us in a position to be able to compete with the more scaled players” in the direct-to-consumer streaming market, Ellison added.
Paramount+ is the home of the “Star Trek” franchise and popular television shows from “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan. 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 by Paramount in a blockbuster deal. The deal was signed after Netflix abruptly pulled out of the bidding war for Warner’s studio and streaming assets, drawing the curtain on a corporate battle that had captivated Hollywood and beyond.
Paramount’s offer of $31 per share values Warner at approximately $77 billion. The takeover bid, taking into account Warner’s debt load, totals more than $110 billion.
If regulators and shareholders approve the Paramount-Warner merger, Ellison would take over an expanding portfolio of assets that includes the Warner Bros. Pictures movie studio, DC Entertainment, HBO and CNN. (The Netflix offer did not include Warner cable channels.)
Ellison is no stranger to the regulatory approval process: Skydance Media acquired Paramount Global last year in a deal valued at $8 billion, giving it control of a movie studio, the CBS network and a trove of intellectual property. The deal catapulted him into the upper ranks of modern media moguls.
Monday’s investor call gave the public an early look at Ellison’s plans for Warner once the merger is complete.
He promised to release 30 films in theaters a year and promised 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 sell Warner’s suite of cable channels, which also includes TNT and TBS. Comcast, the parent company of NBC News, recently spun off cable assets such as MSNBC, which was renamed MS NOW, CNBC and E! into a separate entity called Versant.
Ellison, son of Silicon Valley titan Larry Ellison, a close ally of President Donald Trump, insisted that the Paramount-Warner alliance would “allow us to better compete in today’s rapidly evolving market” and lead to a “stronger Hollywood.”
The deal has been met with a mixed reaction in the US film and television capital, with rank-and-file employees in Los Angeles expressing fears about possible job cuts, a potential pullback in content spending and broader technology disruptions.
