10 Burning Qs: Paramount–Warner Bros. — What Survives, and Who
‘It’s going to be worse than you think,’ says one insider
I wrote about the org chart from hell of a combined Warner Bros.-Paramount, mapped the three budget buckets running TV now and laid out 5 burning Qs about Dana Walden’s plans in her new Disney role. Email me at lesley.goldberg@theankler.com
Paramount’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery will create a media giant that unites Harry Potter with Beavis and Butt-Head, Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone universe with Ted Lasso and the studios behind Top Gun: Maverick and Sinners. The combined company will have two massive film studios, three TV studios, two sizable streaming platforms and a list of cable networks longer than a CVS receipt. It’s an unprecedented rollup of talent, IP and industry culture — and raises far more questions than answers.
WBD CEO David Zaslav and Paramount Skydance chief David Ellison hope to gain regulatory approval on the deal by the third quarter, and Paramount COO Andy Gordon told Wall Street on Tuesday the company has “already made significant progress in securing regulatory clearances globally.” Still, scores of industry observers believe the process could take considerably longer. The combined company would also be saddled with a whopping $79 billion in debt. Not good. It means more money going toward servicing debt — and less toward programming.
“It’s going to be a year and a half to two years before we begin to see the impact,” says a WBD insider. “After that, there will be significant slashes instantly because Paramount’s higher-ups need to immediately find savings.”
All this is to say is that WBD and Paramount will both look very different in the next couple years. What will the new company be called? Which film and TV studios — and their respective chiefs — will survive? Can a combined super-company really release 30 films in theaters annually? Will Casey Bloys remain at HBO if the crown jewel of Warner Bros. becomes a tile on Paramount+? I wrote about some of these conflicts and questions last week, before Paramount emerged with the winning bid, but now, there’s a lot more to talk about.
“Whatever questions you have can’t be answered at this point because whatever is going to happen is going to evolve,” says a longtime exec familiar with both Paramount and WBD. One thing that’s certain, though, this person adds: “It’s going to be worse than you think.”
Behind the celebratory press releases lies a messy reality: Someone is going to win this merger, and a lot of people and divisions are going to lose it.
Today, I look at 10 burning questions:
Ellison’s plan to keep the cable assets and why many think it won’t hold
Where $6 billion in cuts will come from, how many jobs will be lost — and whose?
The combined streaming strategy and what it means for HBO and its revered chief, Bloys
The TV studio shuffle, and which assets will rise to the top as others get winnowed and absorbed
How the film studios will be structured and the executive who’s expected to end up in charge of them all
What “optimizing the combined real estate footprint” means for the future of two iconic Hollywood studio lots
What are they going to call this behemoth, anyway?