YHK - yet another hacker news clone

Paramount Skydance has completed its $111B merger with Warner Bros. Discovery

76 points Mgtyalx 1 hour ago 71 comments

b0rtb0rt 1 hour ago | parent

so does this mean i get paramount plus for free with my hbo?

throw03172019 1 hour ago | parent

It means they are going to raise prices for both platforms because they can.

fooqux 55 minutes ago | parent

And then everything else will follow suit. Not that they haven't already been doing just that.

2muchcoffeeman 26 minutes ago | parent

Everybody just stop subscribing and do something else and pirate the shit out of their content.

greyw 1 hour ago | parent

If it makes them more money

rylando 59 minutes ago | parent

Free? I don’t think a monopoly knows the meaning of that word

Hamuko 41 minutes ago | parent

It means that Paramount Plus is saddled with debt, and HBO is saddled with debt. And that someone needs to pay off that debt.

kwanbix 1 hour ago | parent

Yes! What the consumer needs! Less competition! Hurrah!

Sorry for the sarcasm.

stavros 46 minutes ago | parent

Less regulation means more innovation!

roroh4310 34 minutes ago | parent

I will believe this internet comment. Thanks!

stavros 32 minutes ago | parent

It is in your best interest. All this innovation is sure to mean better quality of life for the average person, and not at all a widening of the income gap.

smashah 56 minutes ago | parent

How much did the Gulf states pledge towards this?

optimalsolver 55 minutes ago | parent

From what I see on r/stablediffusion, Hollywood has maybe 2 years left, in the optimistic case.

fooqux 53 minutes ago | parent

Even if it gets good enough, you're forgetting about everything else that goes into movie making and distribution. Hollywood will keep their hold on media, they just might use AI to increase profits even higher.

john_strinlai 50 minutes ago | parent

i am extremely wary of making any predictions about ai, given what's happened in the last year, but i would put good money on hollywood being around in 2 years. there's much more to the movie industry than slapping some video together.

r/stablediffusion seems to be a bit disconnected from reality, to put it nicely.

beanjuiceII 48 minutes ago | parent

ehhhh i dunno about that. the stuff i've seen from people, and watched looks much better than most crap hollywood puts out anymore

john_strinlai 46 minutes ago | parent

to reiterate: there is more to the movie industry than putting a video together

foobarian 33 minutes ago | parent

The vibe I get is like when the Meta VR app store product launched, and there was huge promises and optimism about all the amazing apps and experiences, but when you bought it and actually tried, it was a few juiced up flagship things and a bunch of shovelware.

Hikikomori 53 minutes ago | parent

Another nail in Americas coffin.

stock_toaster 42 minutes ago | parent

Yet another oligarchy centralization play. I assume more to come.

cdrnsf 50 minutes ago | parent

So when do they raise prices and start laying folks off?

cmorgan31 48 minutes ago | parent

They already acknowledged layoffs so likely within 30 days the cull list will be presented to senior leadership.

toomuchtodo 46 minutes ago | parent

Their debt load is enormous due to how quickly debt costs have risen from M&A talks to issuing the debt.

https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/skydance-credit-rating-down...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-01/paramount... | https://archive.today/SEtX9

cdrnsf 15 minutes ago | parent

I'm sure they'll figure that out.

brnt 46 minutes ago | parent

Do we really need two Ellisons?

thinkingtoilet 35 minutes ago | parent

Do we even need one?

superxpro12 43 minutes ago | parent

Its so weird how these layoffs somehow targeted every left wing news organization or show. We just cant be certain how that happened. oh well

trebligdivad 48 minutes ago | parent

When do we get Bugs Bunny on the Enterprise ?

wccrawford 18 minutes ago | parent

I'm not even mad. Let's do it. With Marvin the Martian.

They had a Lower Decks cartoon crossover already, so they can't even deny the possibility now.

bigwheels 48 minutes ago | parent

Can this be undone in the future if folks realize it was too monopolistic and it was in fact an anti-trust violation?

I wonder if David Ellison is a fun guy IRL.

Y_Y 45 minutes ago | parent

He has a nice yacht, I bet it's fun on the yacht.

yolp5 24 minutes ago | parent

Probably not if you're an underage girl though.

fhub 18 minutes ago | parent

Are you insinuating something about David Ellison here?

yolp5 17 minutes ago | parent

It's one big club

Hamuko 43 minutes ago | parent

Seems to me that these companies will say pretty much whatever during the merger process, and as long as there's no concrete repercussions written down somewhere, just do whatever since it's much harder to break a company apart than it is to block a merger.

bigwheels 38 minutes ago | parent

The pre-merger settlement approved by the current supreme court was that Skydance would: (1) Agree to production quota of 30 movies per year, (2) Domestic spending commitments, and (3) Separate cable package negotiations.

Assets: TNT, CBS, CNN, MTV, TCM, Showtime, Adult Swim, DC Studios, Paramount+, Nickelodeon, HBO/HBO Max, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network

Film Rights: Star Trek, Gremlins, Beetlejuice, DC Comics, Tom & Jerry, Harry Potter, Citizen Kane, Transformers, A Quiet Place, Looney Tunes, The Conjuring, Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones, Dora The Explorer, Mission Impossible, The Lord of the Rings, SpongeBob SquarePants, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Dune 3, Minecraft, MonsterVerse

Remember that Citizen Kane is the movie about a media tycoon who buys everything he can and ends up alone in a mansion full of stuff.

scun 14 minutes ago | parent

Nothing on that list should have lived this long.

aleksandrm 9 minutes ago | parent

As a Trekkie, I'm offended.

scun 5 minutes ago | parent

Then you are too invested for your own good.

whycome 8 minutes ago | parent

So you’re saying this opens up the possibility of some wild crossover media stories. Star Trek exploring new worlds that also include krypton, cybertron, and the game of thrones world. Oh Dune too. And maybe do the time travel thing to see a Lord of the Rings middle earth. And have Dora graduate to captain of a star ship (or explore the sea and encounter SpongeBob and Aquaman). Batman can team up with the Mission Impossible crew to solve a mystery. Ninja turtles in a mortal kombat? Wonder Woman in Westeros with Harry Potter?

Maybe a Sora descendant will allow user-directed content to emerge.

nutjob2 25 minutes ago | parent

If the Trumps get their cut, you're golden.

yolp5 23 minutes ago | parent

> Can this be undone in the future if folks realize it was too monopolistic and it was in fact an anti-trust violation?

I predict the democrats winning, shoving it all under that table and pushing for "reconciliation" and "moving forward" while continuing the rotten status quo that got Trump elected in the first place. Maybe a few token prosecutions of low level wage workers involved.

lokar 6 minutes ago | parent

IMO, a better solution for the broadcast media part of this is to delegate content regulation to the states when the signal from a tv/radio station is entirely within one state (and some kind of join regulation when it spans >1).

Concentrating so much power in the federal government is problematic, and unnecessary.

anthonypasq 5 minutes ago | parent

serious question how could you possible argue this is monopolistic when Disney, Netflix, and Youtube exist. It doesn't pass the barest level of scrutiny.

cheesecakegood 46 minutes ago | parent

So they’ve committed to for example releasing 30-32 movies a year for the next five years [1] but after that, no promises. Good thing mergers are famously temporary and we never need to worry about the next 10 years! Oh wait…

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/09/25/paramount-hollywood-prom...

blakesterz 45 minutes ago | parent

First it was Time in 1990, then AOL then AT&T then Discovery and now this. That's 5 owners since 90 for Warner Brothers and none of those really worked out well. I don't know enough to know if this stands a better chance, but if I was going to bet, I'd bet Warner has a new owner before 2030.

chasing 42 minutes ago | parent

You have to admit that David Ellison is extremely talented at being born to one of the wealthiest people in human history.

xnx 41 minutes ago | parent

Seems fine. There are more options for entertainment than ever. Often these mergers don't work out anyway.

ramon156 28 minutes ago | parent

how exactly do they "not work out"? its two behemoths merging for the sake of more money

prometheus1992 35 minutes ago | parent

not a fan of CNN, but a very right leaning person is the owner of CNN now. pre-dictatorship vibes!!

Waterluvian 31 minutes ago | parent

I don’t follow the sentiment.

Right wing people have repeatedly captured and destroyed journalism outlets they deem undesirable. Not that I’m saying CNN is any good.

nomel 26 minutes ago | parent

Do you think only left leaning perspectives should be reported?

There should be a diverse leaning of news companies, otherwise you'll only get half truths. You can't expect a left leaning news org to report anything bad about the left, or right leaning news org to present anything bad about the right. The left will be motivated to find flaws in the right, and the right will be motivated to find flaws in the left. That's a good thing. I believe an adversarial system is required to find truth. A center leaning news org is nice, but they may be motivated to keep their reporting "even", to not appear biased, which isn't really possible with the tick tock of republican and democrat leadership.

A for-profit news org changing leadership/alignment, in a response to massively falling profits [1], isn't a sign of dictatorship, it's a sign of them being aligned to the reason they exist: making moneys.

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cnn-net-worth-sliced-half-192...

nextstep 21 minutes ago | parent

Do you have an example of left-leaning reporting that is mass media in the US?

reliabilityguy 18 minutes ago | parent

WaPo, NYT, The Atlantic, NPR, and many others.

sailfast 15 minutes ago | parent

Have you read the WaPo and NYT lately?

lokar 4 minutes ago | parent

NPR takes "both sides" reporting to an absurd extreme

prometheus1992 3 minutes ago | parent

WaPo? definitely not. going through independence crisis.

NYT - i think so.

NPR - funding crisis.

The Atlantic - i don't read this - is this the one who's journalist was added in the top secret signal chat?

penskymaterial 16 minutes ago | parent

Yes, all of them, minus the ones you can count on one hand that's missing a few fingers from a fireworks mishap.

prometheus1992 21 minutes ago | parent

>>Do you think only left leaning perspectives should be reported?

No! but where did you get that from?

There is Fox news, X, and Truth socia for right leaning perspectives.

jasondigitized 20 minutes ago | parent

In a alternative universe, a very wealthy person starts a not for profit news agency and gives zero f's how many eyeballs it gets. Hires an army of world class journalists, investigators, and producers to churn out high quality, vetted, in depth content. Does this exist?

Georgelemental 8 minutes ago | parent

Where "right" means specifically "Likud"

simonw 26 minutes ago | parent

Nilay Patel: https://www.theverge.com/podcast/1004286/senator-adam-schiff...

> One of the longest-running tropes at The Verge is that a workable antitrust policy for the United States would be simply to forbid companies from buying Time Warner because it has never worked and it may never work again, and that we should just pass one law.

Checks out:

Jan 11, 2001: AOL and Time Warner merged to create AOL Time Warner

June 14, 2018: AT&T acquired Time Warner, renamed WarnerMedia

April 8, 2022: WarnerMedia spun out of AT&T, merged with Discovery

dkobia 24 minutes ago | parent

A behemoth indeed but the numbers also tell an interesting story. For TV screen share, Youtube has ~13% of total US viewing time vs ~6% for Paramount/Warner. They also go into this merger with staggering debt which does not bode well.

lokar 9 minutes ago | parent

I wonder what that % would look like for US voters over 60

scyzoryk_xyz 4 minutes ago | parent

This would be the anti anti trust argument - that it's not studio vs studio, but it's type of screen-time vs other types of screen-time.

Was it Reed Hastings that was painting Netflix's main rival not other streaming platforms, but other types of leisure like video games? This was during the streaming wars IIRC.

Regardless of how you look at it, this is yet another confluence of IP franchises merging together, whatever juice is left in them squeezed out and reprocessed over and over over time. Kind of what Oracle is in software I guess?

Working in an adjacent entertainment IP focus business myself, my eyes are glazing over a bit at this point.

Papazsazsa 16 minutes ago | parent

I've seen plenty of negative (and legitimate) sentiment around this merger but I'm cautiously optimistic that David Ellison, being half the age of anyone else with greenlight authority, will do something different/better.

developerDan 6 minutes ago | parent

His running of Skydance says otherwise. The most formulaic and bland film studio there is.

ReptileMan 5 minutes ago | parent

Let's hope that the fears of new owners being rightwing are correct so we can finally see The Censored Eleven in their full glory.