Now that the Hollywood writers' and actors' strikes have been resolved, the major studios can get back to what they do best — consolidating to maximize profits and maintaining their stranglehold on competition in the face of a fast-changing media landscape. Axios is reporting that the heads of Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global met on Tuesday in New York City to discuss a possible merger.
The meeting — between Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish — took place at Paramount's headquarters in Times Square and reportedly lasted several hours.
Zaslav's company, which in itself represents a merger from last year between Warner Bros. and Discovery, apparently isn't done consolidating the entertainment industry yet (and to think, we all just got used to saying Max instead of HBO Max!).
Axios reports that Zaslav has also spoken to the CEO of Paramount's parent company, National Amusements Inc., Shari Redstone, about a merger. Apparently both the prospect of merging with Paramount Global and/or with National Amusements Inc. are being discussed.
Warner Bros. Discovery is the studio with a much larger market share, valued roughly at $29 billion. Paramount's market value is approximately a little more than $10 billion.
One of the main selling points for both companies is combining the streaming libraries of Paramount+ and Max, in an effort to more squarely compete with the other major streamers, Netflix and Disney+.
For Paramount, which is in considerable debt and has been selling off some of its assets, a merger would relieve some of those financial struggles.
Warner Bros. Discovery is also interested in Paramount's slate of children's programming to add to its portfolio (Paramount owns Nickelodeon, among other family-friends outlets).
In short, while nothing is set in stone yet, synergy is always fun for behemoth billion dollar corporations, so don't be surprised if you hear about another major Hollywood merger soon. Yay capitalism!
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