Warner Bros Discovery is considering putting the entire company up for sale, a move that could see huge restructuring in an industry that has seen ripples of changes since Donald Trump took office.
The company initially said in June that it would split up Warner Bros and Discovery, after the two companies were merged in 2022. But after receiving “unsolicited interest … from multiple parties for both the entire company and Warner Bros”, according to a statement released on Monday, the entire company could be up for a transaction. The company could also split up Warner Bros and Discovery, selling off Discovery while merging Warner Bros with another company, it said.
Warner Bros Discovery is the parent company of several subsidiaries including CNN, HBO, DC Studios and the Harry Potter franchise.
“It’s no surprise that the significant value of our portfolio is receiving increased recognition by others in the market. After receiving interest from multiple parties, we have initiated a comprehensive review of strategic alternatives to identify the best path forward to unlock the full value of our assets,” said David Zaslav, the Warner Bros Discovery CEO, said in a statement.
The company said that there was no deadline or definitive timeline for any transaction besides the split-up of Warner Bros and Discovery. Shares of the company were up nearly 10% by Tuesday morning, hours after the announcement.
The move is just the latest media shake-up at a time when companies appear emboldened by a White House that is friendly to major mergers and acquisitions.
While it is unclear what offers Warner Bros Discovery has received over the last months, the company reportedly rejected a bid from Paramount Skydance for $20 a share for Warner Bros, an offer that was reportedly too low for the company, according to Bloomberg.
Over the summer, Skydance Media completed an $8bn merger with Paramount Global that saw David Ellison, son of billionaire Larry Ellison, become the head of a new giant media company.
Before the merger was closed, Paramount, the parent company of CBS, paid a $16m settlement to Trump to settle a defamation lawsuit against news show 60 Minutes. The network also said that it would cancel The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, a vocal critic of the Trump administration, in 2026.
In a letter sent to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which had to approve the merge, Skydance told the FCC chair, Brendan Carr, that it was “fully committed to presenting a diverse array of viewpoints on television”. Carr later said that he was “pleased” with the commitment the company made to “serious changes at CBS”.
Carr would later become the center of the controversy around the brief cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show last month. Nexstar Media, one of the largest owners of local television stations that is looking to conduct a major merger that would require FCC approval, pre-empted Kimmel’s show for more than a week after Carr said that the FCC could “take action” over Kimmel’s comments. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said at the time, though he has since said he wasn’t making any threats.
Earlier this month, Paramount Skydance announced it would acquire the Free Press, a media startup founded by Bari Weiss, known for her takedowns of “cancel culture” and criticisms of the liberal establishment, and gave Weiss a new role at CBS News as editor-in-chief.
