As announced this morning, Netflix has now officially taken over the Warner Bros. Discovery business, which consists of Warner Bros. Television, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, DC Studios, HBO and HBO Max, as well as all of the film and TV series libraries ever published. Netflix now owns valuable IP such as DC Comics, Harry Potter, Hanna-Barbera and Game of Thrones.
Netflix, however, did not take over the separated Global Networks business. It consists of the entertainment, sports and news businesses CNN, TNT Sports, Discovery networks, the streaming platform Discovery+ and Bleacher Report.
Netflix paid $82.7 billion (RM 340 billion) for all of this in the form of stock purchases and cash payments. If it does not receive opposition from the US antitrust authorities, the acquisition will be finalized by Q3 2026.
This purchase is quite surprising because previously Paramount Skydance was seen as the company that would win the bid because it wanted to buy the entire Warner Bros. Discovery without breaking up the company. Apart from that, Comcast has also shown interest, but at the end of the day, all the Great Houses of Westeros will have to bend the knee to House of Cards.