Warner Bros. Discovery May Have Just Sparked the Next Big Hollywood Bidding War

Warner Bros. Discovery is the latest media conglomerate to go up for sale.

The company, which owns HBO, the Warner Bros. movie studio, and several cable channels, announced on Tuesday that it is reviewing a variety of offers to sell the company.

It said it would consider these bids as it moves forward with previously announced plans to separate its streaming and studio business from its struggling cable channels.

“It’s no surprise that the significant value of our portfolio is receiving increased recognition by others in the market,†said David Zaslav, President and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, in a press release. “After receiving interest from multiple parties, we have initiated a comprehensive review of strategic alternatives to identify the best path forward to unlock the full value of our assets.â€

All options appear to be on the table, including a sale of the entire company or separate deals for its streaming/studio division and its cable channel business.

The move could totally reshape Hollywood and continue the trend of media consolidation into a frighteningly small number of hands. Just this year, Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, MTV, and Paramount Studios, completed its merger with Skydance Media. And it wasn’t that long ago, 2019, when Disney acquired its longtime rival, 20th Century Fox.

It was also only in 2022 when then-WarnerMedia merged with Discovery to become Warner Bros. Discovery. That deal was pitched as a way for the two to become more competitive against conglomerates like Disney and Comcast, as well as streaming pioneer Netflix. But it seems like things haven’t gone as initially planned. This June, the company announced it was splitting itself into two, with its streaming service and studios becoming Warner Bros. and the majority of its cable channels forming Discovery Global.

The company’s streaming service has also undergone several rebrands, most recently settling on the HBO Max name. The company also announced today that it is raising prices for the service.

So, who’s interested?

The Wall Street Journal reported today that Warner Bros. Discovery rejected a second offer from Paramount this week. If the two companies were ever to reach a deal, it would put a lot of power in the hands of Paramount CEO David Ellison, the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.

As head of Paramount, Ellison currently controls CBS News, where he recently appointed The Free Press’s Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief. Under a deal with WBD, Ellison could also potentially gain control over the cable news network CNN.

Comcast is reportedly interested as well, despite recently starting the process of spinning off its own cable channel business, according to The New York Times.

For now, it doesn’t appear that Netflix is seriously considering a bid. Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters recently shut down rumors that the streaming giant is seeking to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.

“We come from a deep heritage of being builders rather than buyers,†Peters said earlier this month at the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles, Deadline reported. “One should have a reasonable amount of skepticism around big media mergers. They don’t have an amazing track record over time.â€