The two names have a big ring in the global entertainment industry. Warner Bros, founded a hundred years ago, is one of the largest film studios in Hollywood. The classic film “Casablanca” with Humphrey Bogart (“I’ll look you in the eyes, little one”) was once produced here, and today Warner has, among other things, “Superman” , “Batman”, “Harry Potter”, “Matrix” and many other successes. Competitor Paramount, on the other hand, is even older and has earned a lot of money with world-famous productions such as “The Godfather”, “Star Trek” and “Play the Song of Death”, but also with “Mission: Impossible” and “Top Gun”.
Now the two are considering a spectacular merger worth billions. Talks between the American and global entertainment companies Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global are in the early stages, reports Bloomberg. The end result could be one of the largest entertainment companies in the world. Whether this will actually happen is still an open question.
In addition to the Hollywood studio Warner Bros., Warner Bros. Discovery also includes the channels CNN, HBO and Discovery. The group was created in 2022 through the takeover of Warner Media by the media company Discovery for 43 billion dollars (around 39 billion euros today). In addition to the film studio Paramount Pictures, Paramount also includes the television provider CBS and the music channel MTV.
A German could play a key role in the merger
Warner boss David Zaslav met with Bob Bakish, his counterpart at Paramount Global, in New York earlier this week to discuss a possible deal, Das reports Wall Street Journal. He also spoke with Shari Redstone, whose family company owns a majority stake in Paramount. Gunnar Wiedenfels could play a key role in the complicated negotiations. The German has been CFO at Warner Bros. Discovery since 2017, so he will probably end up negotiating the financial details of such a transaction. Wiedenfels had worked for the Munich television company Pro Sieben Sat 1 in Munich for a long time until 2017, and was even considered chairman of the board there, but then didn’t get a chance.
The background to the mega deal: The two companies want to defend themselves against the ever-increasing streaming competition. Netflix and Disney Plus in particular are very successful, continue to increase the number of their subscribers and also produce content themselves. Disney had already taken over the film studio 20th Century Fox a few years ago. Together, Warner and Paramount want to give Netflix and Disney Plus more competition. However, it remains to be seen whether this can work.
Almost all of the streaming providers also operate in Europe and Germany. Paramount has recently been heavily advertising its own service in this country, including the lettering on the Union Berlin football players’ jerseys. Netflix, in turn, is successfully offering a new, cheaper subscription that includes commercial breaks. Sky with the Wow service, RTL Plus from the Bertelsmann Group and the Joyn platform from Pro Sieben Sat 1 are also active in Germany. There are also sports platforms such as Dazn, Magenta Sport and Dyn. All of them actively advertise for customers to take out subscriptions. However, experts repeatedly point out that consumers’ budgets are limited.
A merger between the two companies Warner and Paramount would, in addition to the two famous film and television studios, unite a number of pay-TV and radio channels, including HBO and CBS. However, such a merger would likely be subject to intense scrutiny by American regulators, who have already challenged numerous mergers under the Joe Biden administration.