The next phase of a sure-to-be prolonged Warner Bros. Discovery transaction process got going on Monday.
Paramount has officially launched a hostile takeover proposition for Warner Bros., bringing a $30 per share all-cash offer directly to WBD shareholders after the company accepted a deal with Netflix last Friday. The hostile approach was expected after Paramount penned a letter to WBD CEO David Zaslav last week suggesting the bidding process had not given the company a fair shake.
On Monday, Paramount went public with its direct-to-shareholders offer, which CEO David Ellison says is identical to the final offer it submitted privately to WBD’s board. The deal offers $30 per share for the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery, approximately $18 billion more in cash than Netflix’s offer, which sees the streaming giant acquire WBD’s streaming and studios assets, but offers stock in the soon-to-be separated Discovery Global, which will house all of WBD’s declining cable assets beginning in Q3 2026.
A main pillar of Ellison’s argument to shareholders is that Netflix and the WBD board are grossly overvaluing the Discovery Global portion of the deal, which assigns the spinoff company a value of between $3 and $4 per share. Ellison believes that, in reality, the company will be valued at closer to $1 per share, and that Paramount can provide substantial synergistic value to WBD’s cable assets by combining it with an established cable portfolio.
In particular, Ellison pointed to sports rights as being able to prolong the value of Discovery Global’s cable networks — which include TNT, TBS, CNN, and others — despite the industry being in “secular decline.”
“Our deal basically provides a significant amount of synergies in sports rights that will be able to protect those linear properties.”
– Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison on why his hostile takeover offer for Warner Bros. Discovery is superior to the Netflix deal pic.twitter.com/820BomO5fl
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 8, 2025
“That linear business is going to have $15 billion of debt on it. It’s entirely a cable portfolio that is in secular decline. And every single day it’s worth less money than it is right now,” Ellison said regarding Discovery Global’s future prospects during a CNBC interview Monday morning. “Our deal basically provides a significant amount of synergies in sports rights that will be able to protect those linear properties. Having that sit out there on their own, again, I think it’s going to be worth a lot less than people are claiming.”
The other primary pillar of Ellison’s proposal is that Paramount’s offer has more regulatory certainty than Netflix’s. The regulatory argument posits that Netflix faces real hurdles for approval both in the United States and abroad on antitrust grounds. Paramount’s press release on the matter says that Netflix would “entrench its monopoly with a 43% share of global Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) subscribers,” should its deal go through. In many European markets, Netflix would be combining with the second- or third-largest streamer, HBO Max, something that the E.U. could see as untenable. Paramount also cites a “clear risk” of higher prices for consumers, lower pay for content creators, and grave risks for the theater business.
Netflix, for its part, argues that it is not simply competing with other streamers, but large social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok, which consume large portions of people’s attention. Ellison’s rebuttal on CNBC essentially said that Netflix’s argument is like saying Coke or Pepsi is competing with beer brands like Miller Lite. Paramount sees SVOD as a distinctly separate market than what platforms like YouTube and TikTok are providing.
Of course, there is also a political undertone to Paramount’s argument, believing it has the inside track with the Trump administration.
That portion of the argument is anyone’s guess. Just Monday morning, President Donald Trump took a direct shot at Paramount after 60 Minutes aired an interview with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) that painted him in an unflattering light.
“THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP, who just paid me millions of Dollars for FAKE REPORTING about your favorite President, ME! Since they bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE!” the president posted to social media.
On Sunday, Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw reported on a previously unknown relationship between Trump and Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos. The two met at the White House in November to discuss Netflix’s pursuit of Warner Bros. And per the report, Sarandos has been courting Trump since December 2024, shortly after the Republican presidential candidate won the election.
“Over dinner at Trump’s Florida resort, the two traded stories and struck up a bond over their childhoods and their shared love of entertainment. They have remained in touch ever since,” the Bloomberg report reads.
If Ellison’s recent deal to purchase Paramount and combine it with Skydance was any indication, we know that Trump is willing to be transactional when it comes to media mergers. So if one wants to try reading the indecipherable tea leaves of the sitting president, they’d struggle. It seems unclear whether Trump is truly upset with Paramount, or if he is simply setting the stage to demand more concessions should WBD shareholders favor Paramount’s offer.
As of Monday, one thing is clear: Paramount is in for a fight, and we might only be in Round 3 or 4 of a 12-round title bout. And Warner Bros. Discovery, which was often seen as the lowest rung on the Hollywood totem pole from a business perspective, somehow finds itself being the prize.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.