Warner Bros. Discovery said late Thursday it now prefers a boosted offer from Paramount — backed by Skydance — instead of the $83 billion deal it had previously accepted from Netflix to acquire the studio’s streaming service, film units and intellectual property.
Netflix confirmed it would not top Paramount’s revised bid. The company said matching the updated offer would make the transaction financially unattractive, so it declined to counter. Netflix had publicly pushed Paramount to outbid it; CEO Ted Sarandos had challenged Paramount to “put a better deal on the table” and said Netflix planned for Warner to remain an independent studio that keeps releasing films in theaters.
Paramount’s persistence and an improved proposal appear to have swayed Warner’s board. Paramount had earlier floated a much larger package to buy all of Warner, including cable assets such as CNN, TBS and Discovery, in a deal valued at roughly $108 billion. This week Paramount raised its offer by $1 a share, and Warner’s board deemed the revised Paramount proposal “superior” to the arrangement with Netflix.
Sarandos met with White House officials hours before Warner’s announcement, meetings that a White House official confirmed on the condition of anonymity; that official said President Trump did not meet with Sarandos.
Either transaction would draw close regulatory scrutiny. The Paramount approach is expected to prompt a significant antitrust review by the U.S. Department of Justice because it would combine many large entertainment properties. Paramount already owns CBS and the streamer Paramount+, plus networks such as Comedy Central and Nickelodeon.
Paramount’s bid is backed by David Ellison and his family’s resources, notably Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. David Ellison has argued to shareholders that his group may face an easier path through regulators. Observers have highlighted the Ellisons’ ties to conservative political circles: Larry Ellison is a known financial supporter of President Trump, and David Ellison was photographed giving a thumbs-up alongside Senator Lindsey Graham before the State of the Union, a moment noted for its political optics.
The political angle has also surfaced in recent editorial changes at CBS News since David Ellison appointed Bari Weiss as editor in chief; President Trump has publicly praised those shifts. At a Semafor event, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr said he welcomed CBS’s editorial direction under Weiss, characterizing it as moving toward more fact-based, unbiased reporting.
As the parties proceed, antitrust review and political scrutiny are likely to shape the next steps, with Warner’s board now positioning Paramount’s offer as the preferred path forward.