It looks like Luke Bouma want to spread the fear about what happened if merger failed and WBD continue to remain as separate corporation.
I do believe that WBD would opt to split the linear networks, along with unload the massive debt to keep HBO and WBD studio safer like they planned to do before talk about merger with PSKY.
I wouldn't object if PSKY and WBD agrees to combine Paramount+ and HBO Max, so it would be more desirable than combine two studios and linear networks. It would be like Hulu when it was new in 2000s.
Considering the networks still generate a serious cash flow and WB's theatrical slate isn't always profitable annually, they're going to be a key driver in helping Zaslav finish HBO Max's international expansion and whittling away the debt load.
A split also makes both S&S & GN vulnerable so if they want to push the sales process back down the road, it might be avoidable.
The failure of the merger would be more costly on Paramount than on WBD. I mean, WBD earns a USD 7 billion breakup fee from Paramount, and there's also the ticking fee on Paramount as well.
That $7B check combined with continuing debt reductions will make a considerable dent into WarnerDiscovery's debt.
Even then, the channels of the former Discovery wing overlap certain reruns of original productions from each other's channels, so it's not surprising to see them close.
If the goal is to milk as much linear revenue as possible to finish HBO Max's international rollout, they'll need as many channels operating as they can to bring in the money.
They could also easily integrate Discovery+ into HBO Max once most of the expansion is done in order to cut down streaming operation costs.
@Moe This is what I'm talking about because not every year will turn out like the 2025 slate for WB:
"Mike and Pam kick more cans: A fun parlor game on the Warner Bros. lot: Which movies will actually come out on the dates that studio heads Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy have scheduled them? Much was made yesterday of yet another delay for The Batman: Part II, this time to February 2028.
But the more interesting punt is J.J. Abrams’s The Great Beyond, starring Glen Powell and Jenna Ortega, which was pushed from November to October 2027 after Abrams tested the movie in Orange County and the audience definitely had some notes. It joins recent Mike and Pam delays including The Bride! (from ’25 to early ’26, where it bombed), The Cat in the Hat (from March to November), and Jonah Hill’s Cut Off (from this month to… “unscheduled”). Legendary has also delayed Ryan Reynolds’s Animal Friends four separate times, most recently to January ’27 via Warners.
More…: People in town tend to joke about these delays as De Luca and Abdy problems due to creative issues. Not wrong. But the Warner Discovery finance team also has a heavy hand in the release calendar. C.F.O. Gunnar Wiedenfels hates frontloading the money to release and market films when he doesn’t absolutely have to, so Warners ends up pushing stuff around more often than other studios, and going more than four months—from One Battle After Another last September to Wuthering Heights in February—without a single release.
That Gunnar-inflicted barren period could come back to haunt the WarnerMount deal now that prospective owner David Ellison has promised a steady conveyor belt of 30 movies a year from the combined studios. As the states’ lawsuit points out, Warner Discovery C.E.O. David Zaslav once promised 20 theatrical releases in 2024 yet ended up releasing only nine films that year. The 2023 strike crippled output, but the total was only 11 releases in 2025, so what’s to prevent a judge from looking at that recent precedent and throwing the broken promise back in Ellison’s face?"
WB could sometimes have unforeseen theatrical downturns and that's offset by linear networks and in the future, streaming as there's no other major source of revenue streams that can fulfill that role.
If Zaslav & Widenfels don't want uncertainty for the company like the split scenario, the path forward is to keep chipping away at the debt load while HBO Max's international expansion continues.
This would ultimately boost WarnerDiscovery's overall valuation when Zaslav & Malone inevitably do a sales process on their own accords in the future.
deadline.com
