The acquisition of the Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) media and broadcast giant by Paramount Skydance has been given the go-ahead by the US government's Department of Justice (DoJ).
The anti-trust division of the DoJ spent months reviewing the proposed merger – costing Paramount $111 billion – and has now concluded that it will not hurt the competitive element of the US broadcast market.
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Explaining its decision to approve the deal, the DoJ said: "The division has completed its analysis of the proposed merger of Paramount and Warner Bros, and determined based on the evidence received in its investigation that the transaction is not likely to result in harm to competition or American consumers."
Paramount, meanwhile, unsurprisingly welcomed the DoJ's verdict, saying: "We are grateful for the Department of Justice’s thorough review of this transaction, as well as the work of the other agencies that have completed their reviews and provided clearance to date.
"This deal is pro-competitive, resulting in a stronger company better positioned to compete against dominant technology platforms in an industry increasingly defined by intense competition for audiences, talent, technology, and investment."
Now that the merger has passed this stage of regulatory scrutiny in the US – although other challenges do still lie ahead in the UK – it looks set to lead to the creation of a sports rights behemoth that encompasses a major suite of rights across the US and globally.
Paramount’s CBS Sports network holds rights to several major properties, including European club soccer’s UEFA Champions League, American football’s NFL (domestically), PGA Tour golf, and top-tier college sports. In 2024, it aired the most-watched NFL Super Bowl in history.
Just this month, Paramount expanded its broadcast agreement with mixed martial arts’ Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) with a new six-year deal to provide coverage of its top-line events in Canada.
Its Paramount+ streaming service has, as of late, become its primary sports rights vehicle, striking multi-year agreements with the TKO-owned Zuffa Boxing organization and MMA promotion UFC.
In terms of WBD's major sports rights, in the US, it has a domestic rights stable that includes the French Open tennis grand slam, Major League Baseball, college football, and ice hockey’s NHL, as well as an expansive international portfolio that also includes the HBO Max service.
The merger has passed DoJ inspection despite the concerns of those who feel that competition will be reduced because of the merging of different film studios, and the potential for the two news networks of CBS News (Paramount) and CNN (WBD) to be merged.
WBD was initially put up for sale last year, with Paramount and Netflix the two main suitors.
For months, Netflix was the preferred bidder for the sought-after promotion, but Paramount’s repeated attempts to outbid the streamer and its public chase of the company meant that a deal was never reached.
Then, after months of public legal wrangling, Netflix pulled out of the race in late February, leaving the way clear for Paramount's offer – worth considerably more than Netflix's overall – to be accepted by the WBD board.
Then, in early March, David Ellison, the chief executive of Paramount (whose father Larry is a long-time friend of US President Donald Trump), confirmed plans to merge the company’s Paramount+ streaming service with Warner Bros. Discovery’s HBO Max OTT platform once the acquisition was completed.
