Australia

Sydney, October 7, 2026. Paramount has completed the acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, an operation valued at $113 billion US dollars (162 billion Australian dollars) by ABC News, creating one of the world's largest entertainment and information groups. The new entity, renamed Skydance, is led by David Ellison, son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, whose family has close ties to Donald Trump.

The Australian press first raises the question of the spectator. ABC headlines what the merger changes for "what we watch": an immense catalog, from The Godfather and Top Gun to Harry Potter, Friends, Game of Thrones, and the DC universe, comes under the control of a single company. The article notes that the operation brings together two companies already present in Australia, with Network 10 and Paramount+ on one side, HBO Max on the other, and that in Hollywood, concerns exist when fewer players control more entertainment and information.

The local dimension is therefore explicit: Network 10 is listed among the group's assets, alongside CBS, CNN, and HBO. The acquisition leaves Disney, Universal, and Sony as the only other major historical studios, ABC recalls.

The financial narrative is present but secondary. ABC News Politics indicates that Skydance aims for more than $6 billion US dollars in savings over three years, for nearly $70 billion in annual revenue. Trading began on Tuesday, October 6, on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SKYD, and Warner Bros Discovery shareholders will receive approximately $31 US dollars per share in cash. David Ellison spoke of a "historic day" for the industry and plans to eventually merge Paramount+ and HBO Max.

The judicial calendar is summarized in a few lines: Paramount beat Netflix in February, the Trump administration approved the agreement in June without requiring changes, and a federal judge in California validated, less than a week before the closing, a settlement with 12 US states that had sued on behalf of competition law.

The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald rebroadcast the video dispatch that lists Mission Impossible, Harry Potter, and DC Studios combined with CBS and CNN, while The Age incorporates the operation into its market watch, after a Wall Street record.