Paramount Skydance has completed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, and with it came a long-awaited answer about the future of its streaming apps: HBO Max, Paramount+ and Discovery+ "will unify into a single service over time," the company said in its announcement. The deal ends a monthslong saga that began when Netflix announced its own plan to buy Warner Bros. Discovery last year, only to scrap it in February.
The merger gives Skydance control of a sprawling entertainment empire that includes HBO's prestige dramas, Paramount+'s original series, Discovery's reality and documentary catalog, plus CBS and CNN. The news networks will keep operating independently under an "Editorial Independence Board," and Skydance has not said whether it will combine its two rival kids' brands, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon.
What the unified HBO Max, Paramount+ service includes
For subscribers, the promise is less fragmentation: instead of paying for several apps to follow the shows they want, viewers would eventually find titles like House of the Dragon, The Last of Us, Tulsa King and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds under one roof, alongside Discovery+ staples such as the 90 Day Fiancé spinoffs and Fixer Upper: Welcome Home.
Skydance argues that a single platform also simplifies its technology stack compared with running three services separately, and could unlock better recommendations and more advanced features if it borrows the best tools from each app. Engadget notes that plans to merge the apps have been discussed for a while: in March, Variety reported that Skydance CEO David Ellison wanted to combine Paramount+ and HBO Max into one entity with "a little over 200 million direct-to-consumer subscribers." HBO CEO Casey Bloys, now Co-Chair and Chief Content Officer of Skydance DTC, is expected to lead the combined streaming effort.
HBO Max itself is the template here. Since relaunching as Max in 2023, it has mixed Discovery's reality and documentary library with WarnerMedia's films and series, so a further merger follows a pattern the industry already knows well.
