This article reflects market discussions as of December 2025 and will be updated as the situation develops.
As the year draws to a close, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) finds itself at the center of a high-stakes consolidation battle. Netflix signed a deal to acquire much of the WBD business, only for Paramount-Skydance to launch a higher, hostile bid for the entire company. At stake is the future of this most prestigious of Hollywood brands, with some of the world’s most recognizable assets, including the Harry Potter franchise and the HBO Max streaming service. For the bidding media networks and streamers, this is an opportunity to become the major player in the industry; for advertisers, the deal will affect strategy, data, pricing, measurement and the speed at which ad products evolve.
The drama piloted when the formal sales process for WBD launched in November. By early December, WBD and Netflix announced a ‘definitive agreement’ under which the latter would acquire the former’s fabled movie and TV studios, HBO and HBO Max, at an enterprise value of around $83 billion. A few days later, however, Paramount Skydance threw a spanner in the works by launching a hostile offer of $108bn for entire company, including the CNN news network which wasn’t included in the Netflix deal. At the time of writing (18th December), WBD had written a letter to its shareholders urging them to reject the Paramount offer, claiming that it is ‘illusory’ and ‘inferior’ to the terms agreed with Netflix. It remains to be seen how the story unfolds – WBD shareholders have until January 8 to vote on the Paramount offer, although this could be pushed back.
Why the battle for Warner Bros. Discovery?
For Netflix, acquiring WBD would be more than just buying in more content. It’s an opportunity to cement its position as a leading Hollywood player, with some of the most prestigious franchises in the world to add to its roster: Warner’s film slate includes Harry Potter and Batman while HBO is home to shows such as Game of Thrones and The White Lotus. The real opportunity, however, lies in the acceleration of Netflix’s relatively new ad product. The deal will give them more premium supply and more cross-format packaging including series, film, live and FAST. Netflix will also be looking at WBD’s games as a way to fuel its own expansion into gaming.
For Paramount, the focus is slightly different. They already own distinguished franchises such as Mission: Impossible, Star Trek and Yellowstone, so for them the acquisition of WBD is a matter of scaling the footprint of their studio, TV networks and streaming assets, driving cost synergies and a larger combined ad inventory across both linear and streaming. Paramount’s bid presents greater regulatory complexity, given regulators’ greater scrutiny of mergers between direct competitors. Netflix’s proposal is structurally simpler, positioning the deal as an acquisition of complementary content by a distributor, rather than a horizontal merger.
What are the implications for the wider media industry?
The acquisition of WBD by one of its competitors is part of a broader consolidation trend seen across the media and tech industries over the last few years, but it is particularly consequential in its scale. Consolidation begets consolidation – a ‘mega-merger’ of this nature will put pressure on other players to merge or at least partner up in order to keep pace with the market. This consolidation will drive a proliferation in multi-service ad bundles that combine streaming, tentpole content and emerging formats under a single deal. While this can deliver efficient reach at scale, it also makes pricing, benchmarking and measurement more opaque, potentially shifting power away from buyers and advertisers, and into the hands of vendors.
Another significant development will be an acceleration in the divide between premium and open-market inventory. Super-premium, IP-driven content will command even stronger pricing, while advertisers whose budgets don’t reach that far will experience greater competition for mid-tier supply. They will also need to be flexible, as inventory availability and deal windows are reshaped as the deal progresses. Ultimately, while there is much to celebrate for advertisers in terms of cross-service bundles and increased advertising synergies, they will also need to be aware of pricing pushed up by reduced competition, as well as of an increasing lack of transparency and the risks that come from concentration of the marketplace.
What should advertisers do next?
In practical terms, advertisers may need to revisit how they forecast reach and frequency in a more concentrated market, where CPMs are likely to rise and flexibility matters more than ever. Negotiations should increasingly go beyond price, with greater emphasis on protections such as clear inventory guarantees, robust data and measurement terms, visibility into how creative formats are expected to evolve, and change-of-control clauses if product terms shift post-merger. It is also worth taking a closer look at the real value of bundled deals, asking what is genuinely incremental versus where audiences may overlap, and using test-and-learn approaches for new premium sponsorships. Above all, advertisers should continue to spread investment across premium video environments, rather than becoming overly reliant on any single platform.
A final word
Whether Netflix or Paramount ultimately wins, the direction for advertisers is clear. With fewer, larger owners controlling more premium attention, the most successful advertisers will be ones who focus on governance and value, and not just the planning implications. These shifts in the landscape will drive opacity; advertisers must push transparency so they can be sure their media investments continue to drive value for their brands.
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