Studio giants Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) and Paramount Global are in early merger talks according to reports. A resultant deal would create a company with a market value of some $38bn (€34.7bn).

It is understood that WBD President & CEO David Zaslav and Paramount CEO Bob Bakish discussed a possible deal over lunch in New York earlier this week.

According to Axios, which first broke the news, the pair discussed how each company’s main SVoD service, Paramount+ and Max (formerly HBO Max), could merge better to compete with streaming services such as  Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video and Apple TV+.

Netflix’s total number of subscribers is 247.2 million globally. In comparison, Paramount+ total subscribers stand at 63.4 million and WBD at 95 million as of November 2023.

Paramount is under pressure to find a buyer or strategic partner due to its high levels of debt as it pivots to streaming. Warner Bros, behind this year’s movie blockbuster Barbie (pictured), has slighty better financial grounding, partly due to its merger with Discovery.

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Tags: bob bakish, David Zaslav, Paramount Global, svod, warner bros discovery