Warner Bros. Discovery is maybe thinking about partnering with Paramount Global for a combined MAX and Paramount+ streaming platform, Variety reported.

After Paramount Global's controlling shareholder Shari Redstone abandoned the merger with Skydance Media last month, the company is trying out a new strategy under its three CEOs to cut costs, exploring the idea of selling certain assets and increasing Paramount+'s profitability through a JV with another streamer.

One of these partners could be Warner Bros. Discovery. Variety's source confirmed that WBD is interested in looking at a streaming partnership with Paramount Global, first reported by CNBC.

Paramount+ to the Max?

It isn't surprising for WBD to make this move since Paramount's leadership has been very public about their search for a partner. For both companies, at this point they just have to do their own due diligence on what a joint venture would look like. Neither company's representatives have commented about the issue.

In June 25, Paramount Global held an employee town hall meeting where Chris McCarthy, one of the CEOs (also CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks) spoke about two streaming JVs.

McCarthy said that the first “is to enter enter a deep, long-term relationship with a leading technology platform, which already has the full scale that we are trying to obtain. But what they don't have is our scale of content and together we will make for a very powerful combination to drive more minutes and greater profits. And this would allow us to focus a greater percent of our budget on the things we do best — that's making hit content.”

The second “involves us joining forces with one or more other SVOD players. The sheer volume of hit content that we could offer together would be tremendous across TV, film and sports and would attract millions of viewers. Plus, we would share in all other non-content expenses.”

He added, “The great news is there is tremendous interest in partnering with us across both of these strategic options, given the strength of our content, the volume of our hits, and our industry-leading track record.”

Consolidation is the name of the game

For Warner Bros. Discovery's part, CEO David Zaslav said at the Bernstein 40th Annual Strategic Decisions Conference in May, “There are a lot of players that are losing a lot of money. There'll be some players that want to get out of the business, that will look to consolidate their streaming businesses with others.”

He added that WBD will be “opportunistic” when it comes to M&A deals in coming two to three years and that there will be four or five streaming platforms that will end up dominating the global space.

Earlier this year, Paramount discussed a merger between their streaming service and that of NBCUniversal's Peacock. However, there are no new announcements on that end. Last year, Zaslav and then Paramount CEO Bob Bakish spoke about a merger between WBD and Paramount Global, but nothing came out of the discussions.

In the last few weeks, both Paramount+ and Max have announced price increases. Max's ad-free tier available in the US will increase $1 to $16.99 from $15.99 monthly, while the yearly plan will be hiked up to $169.99 from $149.99. The same price increase applies to its ultimate ad-free tier to $20.99 monthly and$10 yearly to $209.99. These took effect June 4.

For the ad-free Paramount+ With Showtime plan, it will increase by $1 to $12.99 monthly. The with-ad Paramount+ Essential plan will go up by $2 to $7.99 monthly for the streamer's new subscribers. These increases will take effect for Paramount+'s new subscribers Aug. 20.

The price increases are seen as the companies' strategy to prove to Wall Street that their streaming divisions can still profitable.