The Final Rose Ceremony
At the time I began writing this (December 4, 2025), the so-called great bidding war for Warner Bros Discovery is probably likely coming to an end.
In the middle of writing this piece, right around midnight on December 5, apparently there is a definitive winner. I'll talk about what happened and how it happened here.
In this case, it's The Golden Bachelor.
An older, rather seasoned media company that hasn't had the best luck when it comes to relationships in the past is putting themselves out there hoping to find companionship, kinship, and a new beginning of sorts.
Are they looking for romance? Nah. Just survival at this point in a world where everything is changing, not only creatively and fiscally, but also politically and tech-wise. And after an incredible year with lots of theatrical hits and small-screen successes across many outlets, Warner Bros Discovery is definitely feeling themselves and knows they're worth a lot.
After weeks of courting various suitors, it turns out there are three that made the final cut: Skydance, Comcast, and Netflix.
All of them have their reasons for wanting to court WBD, but in the end, only one will end up owning them. None of the suitors are perfect, and I don't think any of them deserve to own the iconic company. But to paraphrase a lyric from a spinoff of a series they own, it's what the studio wants, why bother to complain?
Let me break down each of the final three suitors.
Skydance. Of all the would-be suitors, Skydance is the one WBD should avoid altogether. They have displayed a rather odious pattern of almost violent and destructive rhetoric that should be more than disqualifying. I've talked about the mountain wrecker in depth about a month ago, and my feelings remain the same. Skydance and WBD have way too many overlapping units to justify a full merger, and the fact that Skydance has convinced themselves that they would have an easier time getting regulated around the world is laughable at best and embarrassingly naive at worst.
Skydance has already stated they wanted to get rid of HBO and HBO Max in favor of Paramount+, get rid of everybody at CNN from the management down and transform it under the direction of CBS News' current right-wing regime, and remove racially and culturally diverse creators and creators and any progressive voices and creators critical of the Administration like John Oliver. They've been using conservative media outlets to push the false narrative that only Skydance would get through federal approval procedures, especially given how the Administration seems to favor Skydance over any other company from buying Warner Bros Discovery. Again, the only reason why the Administration is supporting Skydance is because the President has seen what they have done to CBS News and applauded the network canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and they wouldn't mind seeing CNN and HBO suffer the same fate.
There have been circulations of rumors of Saudi money being used to finance Skydance's bid for WBD, with various Saudi groups taking IPs and splitting up individual units for their own whims. A Saudi-owned American news outlet should alarm every American considering the country's role in terrorism and geopolitics, especially for their role in the worst terrorist attack on the United States. It would be frightening if the Saudis owned CNN on the 25th anniversary of the September 11th Attacks, especially given how CNN provided the most extensive coverage under the direction of Ted Turner himself on that tragic day.
While the Ellisons have denied that report, the fact that they met privately with Saudi officials in the White House with the President a few weeks ago definitely didn't help their denial. If anything, that should have given pause to the shareholders of WBD.
Speaking of the shareholders, apparently Skydance is mad at them and WBD for allowing a vetting process for potential suitors is even happening. Skydance feels that it's pointless, and they should just be given the company despite not having enough money on their own or having the highest bid in general.
If Skydance and WBD were real people, WBD's friends would warn them not to be in the same room as Skydance, let alone date them. Their public behavior feels like someone who can't take no for an answer despite being repeated rejected many, many times, spreading fake rumors about their crush to make them look bad to others, and straight-up threatening them to go out with them or else they'll do something violent, including hurting the person they're dating. Straight-up stalker behavior. You wouldn't accept that in real life, and Warner Bros Discovery shouldn't accept that from Skydance and have nothing else to do with them.
Comcast. The curious thing about Comcast is that the moment WarnerMedia and Discovery combined into one company, they had been the de facto favorite to buy the new company even though, at the time, the new WBD wasn't for sale. Didn't matter to Wall Street investors, they had convinced themselves that WBD wasn't Comcast's company yet for the longest time.
Then again, this was the same Wall Street that also told themselves for well over a decade that Apple was going to buy Disney.
Don't trust Wall Street analysts, kids. They are utterly weird and biased.
But a few weeks ago, a lot of them finally felt vindicated that Comcast was going to put in a couple of bids for WBD. The difference between Comcast and Skydance, aside from the fact that Skydance is completely in lockstep with the Administration and Saudi Nationals, is that they've shed a lot of major conflicting units that would have made such a deal a regulatory nightmare.
Comcast spun off their cable news channels (MSNBC and CNBC), their general entertainment network (USA), and various other outlets domestically into a new self-contained company, Versant. The new company has already prepared to develop a new business plan as well as started making major acquisitions of their own.
Granted, there are a few overlaps remaining between Comcast and WBD, but they're pretty minor by comparison. Comcast no longer owns USA, so they could own a network like TBS and TNT with no overlapping units. Domestically, Comcast has no overlapping units with WBD.
Internationally, that's a whole other matter. Technically speaking, CNN and NBC News doesn't really cancel each other out domestically. However, in most of Europe, CNN and SKY News would overlap. HBO doesn't really have a presence in Europe, and they do have a programming partnership with various programmers, including SKY. The upcoming launch of HBO Max in the region has been a long time coming, but if Comcast (or any of these suitors, really) buys WBD, that's not going to be around long.
Oh, and I should mention that Comcast is trying to buy ANOTHER major company. Comcast's SKY Group is currently a leading bidder for ITV, one of the UK's iconic and biggest independently-owned broadcast channels. While the over-the-air channels are what SKY is focused on, they're not trying to buy ITV Studios, which is weird to me. Regardless, if somehow SKY is able to buy ITV after getting through government regulators, I don't think they'll get through another round of regulation if they try to buy WBD as a whole. That said, perhaps Comcast's plan in the European market would be to buy the ITV channels and The Warner Bros Company, which would largely be the studio and streaming assets, though they'd still have to spin off any interests in HBO Max and Discovery+, which is a major streaming home for the Olympics throughout Europe.
I think a lot of folks tend to overlook that the fact that there will be global ramifications with whomever ends up with WBD because this is a MASSIVE international media group. And the world's much bigger than the United States. I think that's the one flaw Skydance and so many folks either ignore of don't realize.
Comcast made itself smaller, but would that be enough to make a deal with Warner Bros Discovery? Who knows?
Oh, and speaking of global media companies, I have to talk about the final major suitor.
Netflix. Netflix is not a media company in the traditional sense. They don't own a major production company that produces films and television series, but they do distribute them. They don't own cable networks. They don't own sports or news channels. They don't have a massive library of shows they own outright. That said, Netflix is the biggest media company in the world with a global footprint of one major product.
They own Netflix.
That's their lone product.
And they're very good at that one product.
That said, the fact that Netflix was reluctant to even try to bid on anything from Warner Bros Discovery initially wasn't surprising. They knew the history behind every major company that tried to buy Warner in some capacity, and they knew it wasn't always going to end well for the acquiring party even though the company has been very successful in nearly every sector they're in.
So, why the sudden change? Why did Netflix decide to make a major play for Warner Bros Discovery? Honestly, I think it had something to do with the fact that access to such a massive library of films and television series, iconic characters, and valuable franchise was too good to pass up. And they also felt they had a chance to be a major bidder for the unit, especially after WBD kept rejecting Skydance's bids.
Again, Netflix didn't need to buy Warner Bros Discovery. They're not in the linear TV business and never made an attempt to enter that market. Granted, they managed to pick up valuable productions that were once exclusive to linear television. Heck, in 2025, Netflix picked up WWE Raw and Sesame Street as well as a few NFL games. They already have streaming rights to several shows and movies owned by WBD, including some exclusive rights to Arrowverse shows they've had for quite a while that are just starting to expire.
Plus, Netflix makes movies. They make big movies and premiere them on Netflix. Two of the biggest films to come out in 2025 were KPop Demon Hunters and Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, both of which are heavy favorites to win Oscars next year. The fact that Netflix bypassed the traditional theater windows for their releases and so reluctant to release films theatrically may have been another reason why people were surprised that Netflix made a bid for Warner Bros Discovery, which owns both Warner Bros Pictures, one of the oldest and evergreen film labels on the planet, and New Line Pictures, which has a very diverse and prestigious pedigree of films from low-cost horror flicks to Oscar-winning epics.
I have a feeling that Warner Bros is still going to exist under Netflix as an active theatrical unit. I don't feel that would happen if Skydance or Comcast would win the final bid. I honestly think the latter two shutter WB altogether or just turn it into a minor label the way Disney did 20th Century Fox, which is now Touchstone Pictures wearing a 20th Century Films fox-skin coat.
Warner Bros Discovery works with EVERYBODY and has shows on EVERY MAJOR BROADCAST NETWORK and streaming platform. There is a fear that Netflix would keep everything under its red curtain which is why so many were shocked that they would even make a bid.
But again, Netflix's interests in WBD is largely The Warner Bros Company, not the linear side of the company. They wanted the studios, the library, TNT Sports International, HBO, and HBO MAX, not the units that would comprise Discovery Global. While it would be nice to think Netflix would have an interest in entering the linear TV market, again, that's not their wheelhouse. They have Netflix. Though I am curious if Discovery Global would still own a piece of Warner Bros if Netflix or Comcast were successful in their bids. I doubt it since it seems like the initial plans going into the split aren't going to be what they originally wanted to do.
Now that you know who the final three suitors were, we know who Warner Bros Discovery supposedly gave the final rose to.
It's Netflix.
I say supposedly because at the time I initially wrote this, nothing has been officially announced or made official by either WBD or Netflix. We don't know what the actual deal is for nor what the combined company will really look like. That said, I have read that if the deal doesn't actually happen due to their actions (and not because of federal interference), WBD would have to pay a $5 billion penalty to Netflix. So, I think it's safe to say that Netflix has come out the winner in this reality show we've been playing for a couple of weeks.
But why? I have theories:
- Skydance overplayed their hand and made an utter ass of themselves, especially in the media and in public, especially in the days leading up to the final vetting period, openly complaining about how "unfair" it was that they'd have to go through all of this and how David Zaslav was just being greedy. It got really ugly really fast, and WBD didn't want to have anything to do with Skydance.
- Skydance still doesn't have a clue what to do with Paramount, you know, that OTHER media empire they've just purchased.
- Comcast really didn't put in a serious bid and kind of half-assed it. Had they really wanted to buy WBD, they probably should have attempted to do so years earlier when that fire was still hot after the initial trust was finalized. Instead, Comcast had other matters they've been focused on, most notably the potential ITV acquisition they're working on.
- The Netflix deal was preferrable to the stockholders, especially given how they've been watching what Skydance has been doing at Paramount. Plus, there wouldn't really be much of a shake-up due to overlapping units, and the corporate culture at both Netflix and WBD seems to be identical.
- David Zaslav will get something out of the deal that he wants that he wouldn't have gotten from Skydance or Comcast.
- Netflix has the cash money on hand to make a deal, which is a plus since they don't have to ask their daddy for it.
- HBO Max's survival was a key factor. Skydance wanted to get rid of it altogether in favor of Paramount+. Comcast wanted to combine it with Peacock. Netflix might be turning it into their equivalent of Disney+. I'm going to have to talk about that another time because I have to put all of those thoughts together.
- What's even more of a plus is that aside from HBO Max, there are no units that overlap and cancel out each other or creating any cultural clashes by targeting the same audiences and consumer bases unlike the other two suitors. To put things in perspective, here's a list of comparable units each suitor has compared to similar units owned by Warner Bros Discovery:
It's no wonder that Netflix has come out as the favorite and apparent victor in this contest. There is very few logistical and regulatory barriers that would prevent them from buying the company.
The only question remaining is whether or not Netflix will continue Warner Bros' theatrical commitment, which they have assured shareholders that they would. Movies make money, a lesson Netflix learned after putting out KPop Demon Hunters for one weekend.
It is kind of crazy knowing that at least in this moment Netflix, a company that risked it all in putting films online after starting up a mail-in video rental company decades ago, has not only gained tons of accolades and fans but also could be a step away from owning one of Hollywood's biggest and iconic studios.
That rose never smelled so sweet to them.
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