Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) is an American transglobal mass-media conglomerate, established in April 2022 after Discovery, Inc. purchased WarnerMedia from AT&T. In July 2025, WBD announced a massive restructuring with the plans to break up the holding into separate corporations: Warner Bros. as a holding entity for flagship divisions, like Warner Bros. Studios, HBO, Warner Bros. Games, DC Entertainment, HBO Max, and Cartoon Network Studios, plus a newly-formed [b]Discovery Global[/b] uniting mostly unprofitable global linear TV networks.
In September 2025, Paramount Skydance (a new holding formed after Skydance Media's acquisition of Paramount Global for $8 billion) announced plans to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. The deal would have a significant impact on the entire Hollywood industry, resulting in the "horizontal integration" between two out of the Big Five major film studios, Warner Bros. Pictures and Paramount Pictures — alongside Walt Disney Studios, Universal Pictures, and Sony Pictures. The potential merger will also surpass the previous "downshift" from Big Six, after The Walt Disney Company acquired 21st Century Fox in March 2019 for $71.3 billion. While not requiring mandatory FCC approval, such a large-scale M&A deal will most likely be vetted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Senate already shared concerns of potentially "dangerous concentration of power." Nevertheless, the groundbreaking news triggered a vicious and still ongoing, as of early November 2025, bidding war over WBD, which already rejected three bids from Paramount Skydance and has been reviewing several "unsolicited" offers, including a potential bid from Netflix.