Entertainment
Paramount Skydance makes bid for all of Warner Bros. Discovery valued at $108 billion
Paramount Skydance on Monday made a $108.4 billion hostile takeover offer for all of Warner Bros. Discovery, with its all-cash bid coming just three days after Netflix agreed to buy a part of Warner Bros. in a deal valued at $82.7 billion.
Warner Bros. Discovery “shareholders deserve an opportunity to consider our superior all-cash offer for their shares in the entire company,” Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison said in a statement.
“Our public offer, which is on the same terms we provided to the Warner Bros. Discovery Board of Directors in private, provides superior value, and a more certain and quicker path to completion,” he said.
Paramount Skydance is the parent company of CBS News.
The new offer steps up the battle over the future of Warner Bros. Discovery, which on Friday agreed to a deal with Netflix under which the streaming giant would acquire Warner’s streaming and movie assets. Warner Bros.’ storied film library includes classics like “Casablanca” and the “Harry Potter” film series.
Paramount Skydance said its offer is a better deal for Warner shareholders because it includes the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery, including its cable television channels such as CNN, TBS, TNT and The Food Network. The transaction would also have an easier path through the regulatory process than Netflix’s offer, according to Paramount.
“Paramount is highly confident in achieving expeditious regulatory clearance for its proposed offer, as it enhances competition and is pro-consumer, while creating a strong champion for creative talent and consumer choice,” the company said in a statement.
Paramount Skydance’s offer includes the cost of absorbing Warner Bros. Discovery’s debt, which as of September 30 was more than $33 billion, a regulatory filing shows. The all-cash $30 per share offer amounts to nearly $78 billion. Excluding Warner Bros. Discovery’s debt, Netflix’s bid for the company comes to roughly $72 billion.
Potential antitrust hurdle
Some Wall Street analysts have said the Netflix-Warner Bros. combination could raise concerns among U.S. antitrust enforcers because of the streaming service’s size and the potential to reduce competition in the media space.
“Because Netflix is positioned as the largest streaming platform, the company’s acquisition of HBO Max services and customers raises red flags,” said Jeffrey May, managing editor for the Insights & Enrichment team within Wolters Kluwer Legal and Regulatory U.S., in an email.
May added, “Netflix and HBO Max compete for subscribers. Their combination could be seen as a threat to competition and innovation.”
President Trump also signaled the Netflix-Warner Bros. deal could face hurdles, saying on Sunday that the combined company’s size “could be a problem.” Mr. Trump also said he would be involved in any decision about whether the federal government should approve the deal.
Usha Haley, a Wichita State University professor who specializes in international business strategy, told the Associated Press that Paramount’s ties to Mr. Trump are notable. Paramount CEO David Ellison is the son of Larry Ellison, who leads software maker Oracle Corp. and is an avowed supporter of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump “said he’s going to be involved in the decision — we should take him at face value,” Haley said. “For him, it’s just greater control over the media.”
Netflix declined to comment, while Warner Bros. Discovery didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery jumped $1.65, or 6.3%, to $27.72 in early trading on Monday, while Paramount Skydance shares rose 78 cents, or 5.8%, to $14.14. Netflix’s stock slumped 4.9% to $95.64.
Paramount Skydance’s tender offer is set to expire on Jan. 8, 2026, unless it is extended.
Impact on streaming
Netflix, which has more than 300 million subscribers, is the world’s largest streaming service, according to David R. King, a professor of management at Florida State University.
Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming platforms, which include HBO Max and Discovery+, rank as the fourth-largest with 128 million subscribers, followed by Paramount+ at No. 5, with 78 million customers, he added. Amazon Prime Video and Disney/Hulu rank as No. 2 and 3, respectively.
The prospect of more media industry consolidation has prompted critics such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, to speak out against the Netflix-Warner Bros. deal. In a statement on Friday, Warren said the combination would “create one massive media giant with control of close to half of the streaming market.”
Netflix is likely to argue that other video platforms, such as YouTube should be included in calculating streaming services’ market share, according to The Guardian.
The bidding war follows Warner Bros. Discovery’s announcement in June that it planned to split into two businesses, separating its cable networks from its streaming and studios business.
But in October, the media conglomerate said it had attracted interest from companies about buying all or parts of it outright, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that media and entertainment businesses, including Netflix, Paramount Skydance and Comcast, were pursuing a deal.
Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders “will have to choose between [Paramount Skydance’s] straight $30-a-share cash offer and Netflix’s slightly lower, more complex bid with a linear networks spin-off, both carrying serious antitrust questions,” David O’Hara, managing director at market research firm MKI Global Partners, said in an email.
Entertainment
Why Barry Keoghan is stepping back from the spotlight?
It’s not all red carpet and applause for Barry Keoghan – and he’s not pretending otherwise.
The 33-year-old actor got candid during a recent chat on SiriusXM’s The Morning Mash Up, revealing that the internet’s darker corners are starting to take a real toll.
“I think I removed myself from online, but I’m still a curious human being that wants to go on and, if I attend an event or if I go somewhere, you want to see how it was received. And it’s not nice,” Barry said in a clip shared by Elite Daily.
“There’s a lot of hate online. It’s a lot of abuse of how I look.”
And it’s not just a passing annoyance – it’s changing how he lives.
“And I say this being absolute pure and honest to you. It’s becoming a problem,” he admitted.
“So yeah, I don’t have to hide away because I am hiding away. I don’t have to go to places because I actually don’t go to places because of these things. But when that starts leaking into your art, it becomes a problem because then you don’t even want to be on screen anymore.”
That last part hits hard – because when an actor starts avoiding the screen, we all lose.
But the most gut-punch moment? It’s not even about him.
“It is disappointing for the fans, but it’s also disappointing that my little boy has to read all of this stuff when he gets older,” Barry shared.
Entertainment
Justin Timberlake’s Hamptons DWI arrest video has been released
Justin Timberlake’s attempt to keep his DWI arrest footage out of the public eye has failed and the video is now out, showing the singer stumbling during sobriety tests and telling officers, “These are, like, hard tests.”
Timberlake, 45, had filed a lawsuit against the Long Island town of Sag Harbor earlier this month in a bid to prevent the footage from being released.
That effort was unsuccessful.
The video shows the SexyBack singer being pulled over in his grey 2025 BMW before being put through a series of field sobriety tests by officers.
He appeared confused and unsteady throughout. When asked to walk a straight line, he stumbled a couple of times. As the pressure of the situation mounted, he told the officers, “My heart’s racing.”
He was polite throughout the encounter, responding to officers with “yes, sir”, but declined to take a breathalyser test on multiple occasions.
A female companion arrived at the scene after he was handcuffed and placed in the back of a squad car, offering to drive his vehicle away.
Timberlake was arrested in June 2024 and charged with one count of driving while intoxicated, along with two traffic citations for failing to stop at a stop sign and failing to keep right.
According to a source who spoke to Page Six at the time, he had been at the historic American Hotel in Sag Harbor for dinner with friends before being pulled over, with police reportedly stationed outside.
Friends on the scene pleaded with officers to let him go.
One detail that emerged at the time painted a particularly awkward picture of how the night unfolded.
“The cop didn’t know who he was at first,” a source told Page Six. “Justin said under his breath, ‘This is going to ruin the tour.’ The cop replied, ‘What tour?’ Justin said, ‘The world tour.'”
His mugshot, taken after he was brought into custody, showed visibly bloodshot eyes.
Timberlake subsequently took a plea deal, with his DWI charge reduced to a traffic violation rather than a criminal offence.
Entertainment
‘General Hospital’ star Jacob Young makes major revelation
Jacob Young has spoken publicly for the first time about a seven-year opioid addiction that began with a routine dental prescription and spiralled in secret, hidden even from his own wife.
The General Hospital actor, 46, made the revelation on the Imperfectly Perfect Podcast, tracing the roots of his substance use back to a difficult childhood and describing how addiction eventually took hold of a significant portion of his adult life.
“I went through seven years of my life, wasted on opioids, still trying to figure out what was wrong with me, but I didn’t know,” he said.
“It was just needing to numb… It was the only thing that made me feel normal.”
The opioids came into his life through an unexpected route.
After he and his wife Christen Steward had bought a house and settled in together, Young underwent dental surgery and was prescribed Vicodin.
Apart from having his wisdom teeth out as a teenager, he had never taken opioids before. What followed was years of dependency that he kept entirely to himself.
Young’s history with substances had begun much earlier, though.
He started smoking marijuana around the age of 14, and it wasn’t until his mid-20s, when fame from roles on All My Children, General Hospital and The Bold and the Beautiful brought him into the orbit of New York City’s nightlife, that drinking and cocaine use entered the picture.
By the time he married, he had largely left those behind. The opioids were a different story.
He eventually sat his wife down and told her the truth, a conversation he credits as the turning point. From there, he sought counselling and medical support to work through his dependency.
Looking back, Young connects his substance use to a childhood defined by instability.
His parents divorced and he was shuffled between them in a way that left him unsettled. The family relied on welfare and food stamps, and Young grew up alongside three older siblings in what he described as a humble upbringing.
In his adolescence, he went to live with his father, which felt stable, until his stepmother, who had become like a second mother to him, died by suicide.
His relationship with his father broke down in the aftermath, and a difficult relationship with his mother at the time left him without a reliable parental figure during some of his most formative years.
“I was going through stuff that I didn’t realise that I was ever going to go through, emotionally,” he said, a quiet acknowledgement of just how much had been buried, long before the prescriptions began.
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