Comcast and Netflix reportedly set to join Paramount in Warner bidding

Paramount, Comcast and Netflix are all preparing to make initial bids for Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) by a deadline of November 20, according to reports. 

A report in the Wall Street Journal cites sources saying that WBD has set the date for nonbinding first-round bids with the hope of completing an auction by the end of this year. 

Netflix and Universal-owner Comcast are both interested in WBD’s Warner Bros film and TV studio and HBO Max streaming service, said the Journal, but not the company’s portfolio of cable networks. 

WBD said in June, before it became a buyout target, that it planned to separate its studio and streaming business from its legacy networks, which include CNN, Discovery, free-to-air channels across Europe and the Discovery+ streaming service. 

Neither WBD nor any of the suggested bidders has commented on the latest reports. 

Since its merger with Skydance was completed in the summer, Paramount is believed to have made several bids for WBD, each of them rebuffed. 

Discussing Paramount’s first quarter results earlier this week, however, new studio chairman and CEO David Ellison said that where mergers and acquisitions were concerned, “There’s no must-have for us. We really look at this as buy versus build, and we absolutely have the ability to build to get to where we want to go.” 

Three weeks ago, WBD said it had received “unsolicited interest from multiple parties for the entire company and Warner Bros” and had “initiated a review of strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value.” 

Any bid for WBD would face regulatory scrutiny in the US. This week, in a widely reported letter to US Attorney General Pam Bondi and Federal Trade Commission chair Andrew Ferguson, Republican Representative Darrell Issa said an acquisition of WBD by Netflix would “diminish incentives to produce new content and major theatrical releases.” 

“With more than 300 million global subscribers and a vast content library, Netflix currently wields unequaled market power,” the letter went on, according to reports. “Adding both HBO Max’s subscribers and Warner Bros’ premier content rights would further enhance this position, reportedly pushing the combined entity above a 30 percent share of the streaming market: a threshold traditionally viewed as presumptively problematic under antitrust law.”

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