Netflix Wins Bidding Battle For Exclusive Negotiations With Warner Bros.
Netflix emerged as the winner over Paramount and Comcast in the bidding contest for Warner Bros. Discovery. The streamer is now in an exclusive negotiation period with the storied studio.
After a two-week bidding war, Netflix emerged as the winner on Thursday over Paramount and Comcast for Warner Bros. Discovery, the home of the streaming service and All-Elite Wrestling, while concerns grow over media consolidation and monopolization.
According to several reports, Netflix’s final offer hit the $30 per share target WBD CEO David Zaslav was wanting in a buyer.
Winning the bid, Netflix will enter an exclusive negotiating period with WBD to iron out details of a sale, but that process is far from over.
Paramount sent two letters over the past two days to Trump administration officials and WBD board members with anti-trust concerns over a Netflix purchase of WBD, saying it would be a step toward a monopoly among streamers. Paramount also had concerns with Comcast buying WBD because of its MS Now (formerly MSNBC) cable news channel and WBD having CNN, even though both NBC Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery were planning to spin-off their cable channels to separate cable network companies.
David Ellison, Paramount’s owner, has repeatedly pushed a so-called regulatory advantage the company would have over any other potential buyer due to the Ellisons close relationship with the Trump administration. Ellison’s father Larry is an ally of Trump and a major campaign donor. Paramount’s sale to Ellison’s Skydance company was completed after Ellison encouraged Paramount to pay a $16 million “settlement” to Trump over a CBS News interview with Kamala Harris that Trump has falsely claimed was edited in a deceptive manner.
Netflix’s offer was mostly cash but included some loans, according to Bloomberg and Lightshed Management Partners.
Sources said the sale is far from over. There would likely be dozens of court challenges, not just at the federal level, but by other states who have concerns over the sale as well as unions and others in the media industry.
Netflix, which said it wasn’t interested in the “merger game” just a couple months ago, became an interested buyer due to new strategic changes at YouTube, one source told SEScoops. While Netflix, Amazon Prime and other streamers command billions of minutes in viewing, YouTube remains by far the dominant streamer in the world, eating up the vast majority of viewing by streaming app watchers.
According to Lightshed Partners, Paramount saw WBD as an opportunity to step up against Netflix and Prime, adding the power of two major studios together, two massive film and TV histories and collections. Comcast saw a WBD deal as a step to get into a better competitive posture against Disney.
Paramount’s own bid became more of a regulatory hassle after partnering with the Apollo Group private equity firm and several Mid Eastern dictatorship sovereign investment funds like the Saudi PIF.
While international companies have bought larger and larger chunks of major American businesses, it’s unclear how regulators and and business leaders would react to Middle Eastern governments being major owners of a massive American media company during a time of mergers and buyouts.
Paramount’s other possible concern is Apollo Group, which is already a local broadcast owner and bought Cox Media Group in 2019, The company owns several large local CBS affiliates, including WSB-TV in Atlanta, one of the largest local TV stations and ABC affiliates in the country. Apollo was also had interest in purchasing CNN from WBD late last year before the company announced its streaming and network split.
Comcast was said to have made a mostly stock offer to WBD and would have been closer to a merger than an overall purchase.
Comcast was interested in purchasing WBD’s streaming and movie studio assets. Netflix was interested in WBD’s massive library dating back a century. Paramount wanted to purchase both WBD’s streaming and network assets.
Bloomberg reporter Lucas Shaw said a caveat in the Netflix deal would allow WBD to continue driving films to movie theaters, a model Netflix execs recently called out-dated, despite WBD raking in billions in 2025 with one of the most successful film slates in years.
How a Netflix-owned WBD would affect AEW remains up in the air. Netflix isn’t interested in the cable networks TNT and TBS, which air AEW television. It’s most likely Netflix would absorb HBO Max into the Netflix streaming app, but how that would affect AEW TV also remains unclear as AEW has been a part of HBO Max for the last year and recently allowing pay-per-view purchased for AEW, something the company developed specifically for AEW.
Comcast announced on Thursday it would complete its spin-off of Versant in January. WBD was expected to complete its spin-off of Warner Bros. Streaming and Studios from Discovery Networks by spring next year.
Discovery Networks is expected to continue building its own TNT Sports app. While Zaslav has said sports has continued to be a down performer for HBO Max, the company has plans to put a sports DTC app available after WBD finished its split in spring 2026.
The earliest any merger would be completed, would be late 2026, according to the trade publication Puck.
