Hollywood is in the midst of a downturn as the entertainment industry shifts below its feet, and studios don’t know what to do. The latest impact of this may be a merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, two of the oldest and storied studios in the industry.
Axios is reporting that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav met with Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish this past Tuesday in New York to discuss a possible merger. The merger would see WBD, which is already a merged company after Warner Bros. and Discovery merged, buy out Paramount and possibly its parent company National Amusements Inc., creating an entertainment and news behemoth that could rival Disney even after it purchased 20th Century Fox.
Reportedly, the two studios see a lot that they can help each other out with and very few problems with the idea, as they believe Washington won’t have any grounds to call the company a monopoly, especially as WBD does not have a broadcast station that would cause problems with CBS. The two companies see plenty of pluses with a merger, including a more powerful streaming service that features Paramount’s powerful franchises and WBD’s HBO content. Both companies have struggled to make money in the streaming market as the realities of turning a profit there sink in for all of the industry.
There’s also the added benefit for Paramount of getting out of fantastic debt. The studio and its parent company have been courting suitors for a while now while unloading many of its properties like Simon & Schuster and possibly BET. While things are very early on, and nothing is certain, this merger would be a massive move in the industry and probably signal even more consolidation within Hollywood as studios struggle to compete with each other.
The end result is, of course, less variety for viewers and less companies controlling the media we watch. Let’s not forget that if this merger goes through, Zaslav – a man who sees movies and television as profit, not art – will be in charge of yet another storied Hollywood studio.
