WBD Acquisition Thread

[Moe]

Paramount + WBD Vs. Coalition Of The Unwilling: CA AG Pulling Together Blue States Probe Of Mega-Merger

The clock is ticking on the Paramount & WBD mega-merger, literally, & things could get sticky & expensive if California's Attorney General has his way

deadline.com

Hey, this forum rule require you to say something - just add a line of sentence.

If you post a link - just add your own sentence.

Post in thread 'WBD Acquisition Thread'

Feb 22, 2026

Mod note: Lately there has been a lot of posts that simply have links, tweets, or images with no explanations or commentary. From now on all posts need to contain at least one sentence of commentary. Even something as simple as “look at what I saw on X” will suffice.

• Surreal Kangaroo

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[PF9]

It is only illegal to fire if there is labor dispute, not related to disagreement over M&A.

If it is in case with strike over M&A, mergers with AOL and AT&T wouldn't happen at first place because many WBD staffers weren't happy with those.

I regret that Biden didn't make it legal to strike for any reason during the first half of his administration, could have come in handy now.

Any progress Hollywood made on trying to recover from Disney-Fox has now been undone with this merger, and Hollywood may never recover now.

 

[Moe]

I regret that Biden didn't make it legal to strike for any reason during the first half of his administration, could have come in handy now.

My guess too and his unpopularity didn't help.

Antitrust laws in the US is broken and most federal judges are too biased. Comcast-NBCUniversal, Disney-20th Century, AOL-WB, AT&T-WB and Paramount-WBD mergers would be blocked if antitrust laws are strictly enforced and it will force the companies to improve their assets instead of rely on M&A. It would prevent the Disney from abandon the Touchstone because they cannot expand easily with M&A.

Paramount-WBD would own nearly 50 linear networks in the US, so much more than all of Disney/20th Century, Fox, AMC Networks, Weigel, A&E Networks, Sony, NBCUniversal and Versant combined.

My hope for state attorney generals win the lawsuit to force WBD to divest all of linear networks, including CNN.

Any progress Hollywood made on trying to recover from Disney-Fox has now been undone with this merger, and Hollywood may never recover now.

Yeah, very sad.

 

[glennbyrnes]

I don't see Comedy Central closing they could as well market Adult Swim there especially since they have South Park but MTV and Cartoonito those could be goners.

I don't know about MTV, but Cartoonito is already kaput. MTV hardly shows music anyway.

 

[PF9]

I think the merged company should call itself Skydance Corporation and merge the streaming services under the name Skydance+.

 

[zakawer2]

I think the merged company should call itself Skydance Corporation and merge the streaming services under the name Skydance+.

Nah, Warner Bros. Paramount is more convenient.

 

[Elijah Abrams]

Reposts, now with sentences

What The Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Means For Larry Ellison’s Fortune

By Forbes estimates, the elder Ellison, who is also Oracle’s largest shareholder, doesn’t have enough cash on hand to fulfill his part of Paramount’s $111 billion offer for Warner Bros. Discovery. Here’s how it could play out.

www.forbes.com

Goes to show that Larry doesn’t have the money to pay for this.

Paramount + WBD Vs. Coalition Of The Unwilling: CA AG Pulling Together Blue States Probe Of Mega-Merger

The clock is ticking on the Paramount & WBD mega-merger, literally, & things could get sticky & expensive if California's Attorney General has his way

deadline.com

California did in fact pass laws this year that allowed them to give California AGs more power to block a deal. Even the WGA hates this merger.

WGA Condemns Paramount-WBD Merger, Says “Outcome Is The Same” As Netflix Deal

The WGA East and West condemned the latest development in the WBD acquisition saga on Friday

deadline.com

 

[PF9]

Nah, Warner Bros. Paramount is more convenient.

Both brands are equals to the point where neither should be in the parent company name.

Both studios used to be owned by companies that weren't named after the studio - WB by Kinney National Company and AT&T, and Paramount by Gulf+Western, Viacom, and ViacomCBS.

 

[Kitschensyngk]

For me, seeing Netflix own linear networks would have been bizarre, considering they started the streaming changeover in most of the world

Netflix's deal was just for the studio and streamer. It didn't include the cable channels.

 

[PF9]

If the merger passes, in the end it's a win-win for Legendary

Legendary's Pokemon content should also include adaptations of popular children's books prominently featuring animals using Pokemon analogues. One book that could be adapted in such a fashion is Charlotte's Web, which Paramount has adapted on multiple occasions (but this one again, would be under the WB brand).

 

[harry580]

I think the merged company should call itself Skydance Corporation and merge the streaming services under the name Skydance+.

I felt just skydance sounds looks better (I mean, paramount communications was folded into Viacom and the company didnt used paramount in its name until 2022 and Warner bros was under the name Kinney parking until 1972)

 

[Elijah Abrams]

Is Paramount’s Debt-Laden WBD Takeover Another Ill-Starred Hollywood Sequel?

Paramount's deal to take over Warner Bros Discovery has many echoes of the 2022 WarnerMedia-Discovery merger, especially the deals' massive debt.

deadline.com

This really isn’t going to last.

 

[Insidus]

Nah, Warner Bros. Paramount is more convenient.

Agreed not a lot of people have even heard of Skydance and even know it exists even after acquiring Paramount. I think they should keep the HBO Max trademark and dump Paramount+.

 

[JulianRO]

Full announcement of the acquisition starting, now in the SEC fillings:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1437107/000110465926021688/tm2533570d76_exa5ao.htm

 

[Insidus]

I wonder what's to become of all those linear channels outside the US cause WBD has a lot of them Discovery Max, Discovery Family, Real Time, Quest TV, TNT Africa, Really, TVN etc. cause the whole thing is a mess and I doubt Paramount would keep all of that tbh

 

[JulianRO]

Paramount will shut them down. Or at the very best, merge some feeds.

 

[Insidus]

Paramount will shut them down. Or at the very best, merge some feeds.

I have my reasons to feel this way look what happened when Disney acquired FOX or when Paramount and Skydance merged international feeds were more vulnerable to cuts compared to the US.

Disney still has a Disney XD and FX while most other feeds or the English ones closed. Same with Paramount, they still offer BET and MTV's music stations in the US.

 

[JulianRO]

DXD will shut down in the US one day. It won't last forever.

On the other side, I'm curious what will happen, mainly, with CN.

 

[GRPHX]

DXD will shut down in the US one day. It won't last forever.

On the other side, I'm curious what will happen, mainly, with CN.

I don't even care what happens to CN. My favorite cartoons were purged by Disney a long time ago.

 

[idk_1141]

I don't even care what happens to CN. My favorite cartoons were purged by Disney a long time ago.

Same. Here in my country, we’re receiving Cartoon Network CEE, and they’re airing Gumball 24/7. I hope that when Paramount takes over the channel, they either improve the schedule or move the CN shows to NickToons.