Paramount Skydance is reportedly preparing to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.
The U.S. entertainment industry magazine Variety first reported the impending proposal on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the discussions.
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The company has formed an investment consortium with sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi to submit a $71 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, the paper said.
Paramount Skydance would contribute about $50 billion to the proposed deal, with the remainder coming from wealth funds, according to the report.
Paramount Skydance called the sovereign wealth fund’s involvement “completely inaccurate.”
Paramount Skydance is currently led by David Ellison, the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, a close ally of US President Donald Trump. Warner Bros. Discovery previously rejected a bid from the Ellison family, which has full voting control on Paramount Skydance’s board of directors.
Neither Paramount nor Warner Bros. Discovery responded to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.
Under the proposed structure, the wealth fund would acquire a small minority stake, each of which would receive “intellectual property, film premieres and cinematography,” according to the report.
Warner Bros. Discovery, home of the DC movie universe and television studios HBO, CNN, TNT and Warner Bros. Games, is on the verge of bankruptcy due to a slump in its television business.
The company announced in October that it was considering a variety of options, including a planned separation, a deal for the entire company, or individual deals for the Warner Bros. and Discovery Global businesses.
A non-binding first round of bidding is scheduled for Thursday.
According to US news site Axios, Paramount is currently the only company considering an outright acquisition. Axios reports that Warner Bros. Discovery also hopes to close a deal by the end of the year.
political pressure
The impending deal will be shaped in part by how the Trump administration views reporting by Warner Bros. Discovery-owned news organizations.
Netflix and Comcast are also reportedly considering bids, but any Comcast-led effort would require regulatory approval.
President Trump also repeatedly attacked Comcast over its television news coverage, saying the company “should be forced to pay a huge amount for the damage it has caused to our country.”
Comcast owns NBC News and its subsidiary Versant Media, the parent company of MS-Now (formerly MSNBC) and CNBC.
CBS, owned by Paramount Skydance, has taken a more conciliatory stance toward the administration, including hiring candidate Trump as an ombudsman to investigate allegations of bias after settling a lawsuit alleging that its flagship show “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview with Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate who lost to Trump.
Paramount Skydance also recently tapped Bari Weiss, a right-wing opinion journalist with no TV background, to head its CBS broadcast news division.
Any deal being discussed raises antitrust concerns. But if Paramount Skydance, which already owns CBS, were to acquire CNN as part of Warner Bros. Discovery, “there would be additional public risks,” Rodney Benson, a professor of media, culture and communication at New York University, told Al Jazeera.
“Such an agreement would place two leading news organizations under the roof of the same large multi-industry conglomerate that professes close ties to the ruling party, potentially increasing conflicts of interest, reducing the journalistic independence of watchdogs, and reducing the diversity of voices and perspectives in the public sphere,” Benson said.
Warner Bros. Discovery remains CNN’s parent company.
On Wall Street, Paramount Skydance shares rose 1.7% in midday trading. Warner Bros. Discovery also gained 2.8%. Comcast rose 0.5% and Netflix rose 3.5%.
