Paramount Skydance closed its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery on 6 October, bringing CNN and CBS, HBO Max and Paramount+, and the Harry Potter and Mission: Impossible franchises under one company.
Paramount Skydance completed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday, 6 October 2026, according to reports in The Washington Post, The Japan Times and other outlets. The combined company is called Skydance, and David Ellison is its chief executive and the architect of the deal, according to a summary of the coverage by The Standard-Examiner.
Reports differ on the price. The Standard-Examiner says the takeover was worth $81 billion, while headlines from The Washington Post and others put it at $110 billion. The difference is not explained in the sources reviewed, and it may reflect whether debt is counted, so Delima News reports both figures and does not choose between them.
On streaming, the plan is to combine HBO Max and Paramount+ into a single service over time, according to the Standard-Examiner. The name and price of the service have not been decided. The merger also brings in Discovery+, Pluto TV and BET+. Ellison is quoted as saying that “HBO should stay HBO” and that the company wants it to continue doing more of what it does.
The deal was financed with a large amount of debt. A search summary of the coverage puts the total debt of the new company at nearly $87 billion and says that management is targeting at least $6 billion in annual savings within three years. The Standard-Examiner says regulatory filings suggest the company will cut costs, including through workforce reductions and the consolidation of operations. The sources reviewed do not give the number of jobs at risk.
The terms agreed with regulators include a commitment on cinema releases. Under a settlement with 12 states, the company must distribute 30 films a year for two years and then 32 films a year for three more years, according to the report, with only half of them required to be produced by the combined company. It also pledged to increase spending on US film production by at least $1.5 billion over five years.
The ownership of two news organisations by one company drew concern about editorial independence. The report says Skydance committed to keeping Mark Thompson as CNN’s editor-in-chief and created a News Editorial Independence Board. The sources reviewed do not describe the board’s powers or members.
Foreign investors are part of the financing. The report says that Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates may indirectly hold up to 50% of the equity, potentially rising to 100% through future investments, but without voting rights.
The deal reduces the number of major Hollywood studios. A search summary says that the group of big studios has gone from six to five when Disney bought most of 20th Century Fox in 2019, and now stands at four: Skydance, Disney, Universal and Sony. That count follows the summary’s own definition of a major studio.
The company now has to show how it will combine two large libraries and two streaming services while paying down the debt, and Delima News will report on the first announcements about the combined streaming service.
Image: The Melrose Gate of Paramount Pictures in Hollywood (file photo). Photo: Chris Brown (zoonabar) / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
