Paramount Skydance (Paramount) is set to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) in a massive $110.9 billion deal expected to close in Q3 2026, creating a major entertainment conglomerate with over 200 million combined streaming subscribers. In November 2025, WBD began evaluating strategic alternatives to a previously planned corporate split. Multiple bids were submitted, which led to two rounds of bidding wars between Paramount, Netflix, and Comcast. On December 1, 2025, Netflix submitted an offer to purchase Warner Bros. studios and HBO Max for roughly $83 billion, or $27.75-per-share. WBD signed a merger agreement after deciding to move forward with the Netflix deal. In an attempt to thwart the Netflix deal, Paramount submitted another all-cash offer, which included equity backing from investors and major banks. On February 17, 2026, WBD reopened negotiations with Paramount after it was granted a seven-day waiver to submit a "best and final" offer from Netflix. During this time, Paramount submitted an offer of $31 dollar-per-share. WBD considered Paramount's increased bid to be the superior offer, triggering a four-business-day period during which Netflix could improve its offer, which Netflix declined to do, thus making Paramount the winner of the bidding war.

The merger of Paramount and WBD presents a major threat to democracy and media diversity. It could concentrate too much influence over news, film, and television in one company. Allowing more mergers in the already highly concentrated movie industry could harm filmmakers, industry workers, and change the industry itself, especially if Paramount follows through on its promise to Wall Street to make deep cuts. Paramount owns several cable and broadcast networks, including CBS, The CW, Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, CMT, VH1, Showtime, Paramount Network, and Logo TV. The top U.S. news stations currently are Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC. If the WBD merger succeeds, Paramount will own two major news stations, CNN and CBS, along with their local stations. CBS includes CBS News and Stations, which owns CBS News and many local stations across the U.S., like WCBS-TV (New York), KCBS-TV (Los Angeles), WBBM-TV (Chicago), and WBZ-TV (Boston). CNN covers HLN, CNN International, and CNN en Español.

The merger has not been finalized, and there is still time for shareholders and other individuals to act. The key actions for shareholders are to (1) vote against the merger, since the merger requires approval from WBD shareholders. Shareholders can vote against the deal to stop the merger from going through. (2) Shareholders and other individuals can pressure regulators. People can advocate for the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice to block the deal, arguing that it creates an anti-competitive media conglomerate. (3) People can engage State Attorneys General. California’s Attorney General and others are reviewing the deal for antitrust concerns. Shareholders and other individuals can lobby these officials to challenge the merger, since it could impact industry competition, and limits consumer choice, and violate antitrust laws. (4) Shareholders can raise concerns about deal structure. The merger has been criticized as a "rotten deal" because of the issues with the high level of debt involved in the acquisition and the involvement of foreign entities in the financing. The deal is expected to close on April 23, 2026, at which time WBD shareholders will vote on the merger that will unite Paramount and WBD.