The US DOJ cleared Paramount Skydance's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on 12 June 2026. FCC approval is still pending because the combined entity would be 49.5 per cent foreign-owned. An EU review runs to a 14 July 2026 Deadline.Source: Lowdown

Who owns Paramount Skydance?

David Ellison, founder of Skydance Media, chairs and leads Paramount Skydance following the $8 billion merger completed in August 2025. Skydance's acquisition gave Ellison majority voting control of the combined entity, which is listed on Nasdaq as PSKY.Source: Lowdown

Why does the FCC still need to approve the Paramount Warner Bros deal?

US law caps foreign ownership of broadcast licences at 50 per cent. After the Skydance merger, the combined Paramount Skydance entity is already 49.5 per cent foreign-owned. Absorbing Warner Bros. Discovery would breach that ceiling unless the FCC grants a waiver, making FCC approval the most uncertain of the remaining clearance gates.Source: Lowdown

Background

Paramount Skydance is the entity formed by the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media, completed on 7 August 2025 following FCC approval. Listed on Nasdaq as PSKY, it is led by David Ellison (chair and CEO, Skydance's founder). The deal was valued at approximately $8 billion and consolidated CBS, Paramount+, Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, BET, and the Paramount film studio under a single controlling shareholder.

In early 2026 Paramount Skydance agreed to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in a deal valued at approximately $110 billion ($31 per WBD share). Warner shareholders approved in April 2026. On 12 June 2026 the US Department of Justice antitrust division cleared the transaction, finding it not likely to harm competition or American consumers. The European Commission cleared the deal under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation on 14 July 2026, subject to a remedy: Paramount is exiting its United International Pictures film-distribution joint venture with Universal Pictures, a decision due 22 July 2026. The FCC, however, let its 1 July 2026 "may not close" Deadline lapse without ruling on the combined entity's 49.5 per cent foreign-ownership stake, leaving the review pending a Team Telecom sign-off. On 13 July 2026 a Coalition of twelve US state attorneys general, including California's Rob Bonta, sued in the Northern District of California seeking a temporary restraining order to block the merger outright.

If all approvals clear, Paramount Skydance will become one of the largest media conglomerates in US history, controlling CBS, Paramount+, Max, HBO, CNN, Warner Bros. studio, discovery+, and Cartoon Network. Whoever closes the deal also inherits Warner Bros. Discovery's commitment to rebuilding its entire US advertising technology stack on Amazon Web Services using Bedrock AgentCore, an AI-native infrastructure chosen before the merger closed. That dependency embeds Amazon at the centre of the combined group's commercial operations from day one.