After the expected close of their merger, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery will together be known as Skydance.
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CEO David Ellison revealed the new name Friday, October 2 in a post on X. The $110 billion merger is projected to be finalized on Tuesday, October 6 after a year-long pursuit by Ellison and a two-month delay caused by antitrust lawsuits by 12 states and the Writers Guild of America.
“What once was the peak, is now just the beginning,” Ellison wrote. “Paramount and Warner Bros. shaped over a century of culture. By combining them, we aren’t rewriting history – we’re equipping these iconic studios with a more powerful engine. Together, we are Skydance: a creative-first home for bold, quality storytelling.”
The choice of the name, he said, stemmed from several objectives. One is to preserve the history of Paramount and Warner Bros. as individual entities under the Skydance umbrella. “We never wanted a new corporate identity to diminish, alter or overshadow either one. Instead, we wanted a name that would give the combined company an identity of its own while allowing Paramount and Warner Bros. – and all our extraordinary brands – to remain in the spotlight.”
When Skydance acquired Paramount in August 2025, the company wanted to take advantage of Paramount’s familiar consumer brand while also emphasizing Skydance as the corporate parent. That meant the official name was “Paramount, a Skydance Corporation,” which was later streamlined to “Paramount Skydance Corporation.”
Before the two large media companies combined, the new entity also faced the legal obstacle of an antitrust lawsuit by 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America, which labeled it an illegal monopoly. The settlement of the lawsuits, laid out in a 5-year consent decree, requires separation of the Paramount and WBD operations in several business areas. It also tries to guard against one of the major studios being dissolved, as has been the fear of merger opponents. Those precautions meant that a name appearing to favor one merger partner over the other would also be a potential problem.
In the absence of any official guidance on the name, colloquial handles like “WarnaMount” or “ParaBros” became commonplace. One stark reality of the new identity is that Discovery Communications, which went public in 2008, two decades after the Discovery Channel lit up as a cable network, will now no longer have its name in lights.
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Post-Merger Skydance Keeping Both HBO Max & Paramount+ Streaming Brands
More indication that the newly-christened combined Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery company would bundle the two flagship streamers, Paramount+ and HBO Max, instead of merging them into one.
The video released earlier today by Paramount CEO David Ellison to announce that the new company will carry the name of his old one, Skydance, ended with a slide featuring the new moniker surrounded by what were positioned as the key, most valuable brands of the merged company. (You can see it [above].) It included the logos of Paramount, Warner Bros., DC, CBS, CNN, Nickelodeon, as well as both HBO Max and Paramount+.
Since Paramount was already represented, also including Paramount+ feels intentional, along with the choice of HBO Max vs. the legacy HBO brand.
Paramount (which will become Skydance on Oct. 6 when the WBD acquisition closes) is yet to officially confirm how it will combine HBO Max and Paramount+ into a streaming operation expected to be overseen by Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO of HBO and HBO Max Content.
Asked yesterday whether the two platforms, which are considered pretty complimentary in their offerings, would be bundled vs. fully integrated, he hinted that a bundle may be the way to go.
“I don’t want to comment on what is going to happen or anything like that, but I would point to the HBO Max-Disney bundle, which has been very successful,” he said, adding, “So, could you see something like that happening? That would make a lot of sense.”
Both streaming brands making Skydance’s MVP list would seem to support that idea too.
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Skydance Putting All 3 TV Studios Under George Cheeks: Warner Bros. TV, CBS Studios, PTVS – The Dish
More elements of the proposed post-WBD merger Skydance‘s executive structure are coming into focus ahead of the Paramount-Warner Bros Discovery transaction closing on Tuesday.
As Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg are poised to oversee Skydance’s movie studios, Warner Bros and Paramount, another senior executive on Paramount CEO David Ellison’s team, Chair of TV Media George Cheeks, would be doing the same with the combined company’s three TV studios, sources said. (This is being done in streaming too, with HBO’s Casey Bloys in line to run the combo of HBO Max and Paramount+.)
As part of his current portfolio, Cheeks oversees CBS Studios, something he has done since joining then-ViacomCBS in 2020, with CBS Studios President David Stapf reporting to him. I hear he will now add oversight of Warner Bros Television and Paramount Television Studios, with Channing Dungey, currently Chairman and CEO, Warner Bros Television Group and US Networks, and PTVS President Matt Thunell both staying on and reporting to him.
It is part of a role expansion for Cheeks post-merger, which is said to also include some sort of oversight of cable brands on the WBD side. (According to the settlement with the 12 state attorneys general, “Paramount and Warner Brothers are required to continue negotiating their cable packages separately.”) In his current post, Cheeks oversees all linear Paramount networks, including CBS (entertainment, sports and news), MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and BET.
The consolidation makes sense. For instance, Thunell, well-liked by Ellison from their tenure together at Skydance, currently reports to Goldberg who, alongside Greenstein, will have their hands full running both movie studios.
There had been some speculation that Dungey, given the size and output of Warner Bros TV and her stature as a top TV executive with clout and connections in the industry, may report directly to the CEOs of the combined company as she does now at WBD.
The move would keep the number of direct reports to Ellison (and now co-CEO Ynon Kreiz) across film, TV and streaming on par with what they were at Paramount Skydance, with Bloys (replacing Cindy Holland, who just stepped down), Goldberg & Greenstein and Cheeks.
The combination also would position the three TV studios for future consolidation. It took Disney six years after the acquisition of Fox assets to fully merge the company’s three TV studios — 20th Television, ABC Signature and Touchstone Television — which was done in two stages.
CBS Studios has the most clearly defined lane of the three studios as the primary supplier to CBS (as well as home of Star Trek and an opportunistic third-party seller).
As things currently sit, there is some overlap between Warner Bros Television and PTVS.
They each have been tasked with mining the IP of their sister film studios (which explained Goldberg’s oversight of PTVS) and have been main suppliers to their sibling streamers HBO Max and Paramount+, respectively. Their common playing area is the open streaming market, as both are actively selling outside and have hits on multiple platforms.
Over the past couple of years, Warner Bros Television, historically the largest independent TV studio that produced Friends, ER and The Big Bang Theory, has pulled away from developing for broadcast where it still has hit shows in ABC’s Abbott Elementary and CBS’ Big Bang spinoff Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage and Fox’s sophomore drama Memory of a Killer. That is because networks increasingly stay in-house, which helps makes the economics of broadcast work but essentially shuts out third-party suppliers.
It is unclear whether that would change now that WBTV would be vertically integrated with a broadcast network, CBS, for the first time, but CBS Studios is pretty dialed in on the CBS brand and its needs, producing the NCIS and Fire Country franchises, Matlock and Ghosts for the network, as well as Little House On the Prairie for Netflix.
Recent WBTV highlights include the continuous success of The Pitt, which just repeated as the winner of the Outstanding Drama Series Emmy, the return of Ted Lasso, and the breakout debuts of Rooster and Big Bang spinoff Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, which have been renewed for Season 2. The studio has coming up the buzzy Harry Potter series.
Thunell Frankenstein-ed PTVS last fall when he was tasked with integrating together Skydance Television and all cable production units of Paramount, including Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios, Nickelodeon live-action and Awesomeness, into the new studio. The company, which produces the entire Taylor Sheridan slate for Paramount+, just scored renewals for both its flagship drama Reacher and its spinoff Negaley.
While he comes from a legal/business background, Cheeks is known for his creative involvement in the brands he oversees. (He is credited with identifying the franchise potential of CBS’ Fire Country, for example.) In addition to being in charge of CBS Studios for the past six years, Cheeks’ TV studio experience includes a stint as Vice Chairman, NBCUniversal Content Studios.
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New Name of Paramount-Warner Bros. Unveiled: Skydance
The soon-to-merge Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery officially has a name: It’s simply going to be “Skydance,” according to chairman and CEO David Ellison.
In the end, Ellison picked the name of his original film production company, Skydance Media, to encompass everything that is getting stuffed into the new conglomerate.
The deal forming the new Skydance is set to close Oct. 6, the companies have announced. The merger will combine two of Hollywood’s biggest movie studios; the HBO Max and Paramount+ streaming services; and TV businesses including CBS, CNN, MTV, TBS, Comedy Central, Food Network and more. The new company’s entertainment franchises will span Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, “Game of Thrones” and other HBO hits, the DC Universe, “Yellowstone,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Top Gun” and the Nickelodeon kids’ empire.
Skydance will be led by chairman and CEO David Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz, the former Mattel chief who will join the company Oct. 5.
The company plans to move its Class B Common Stock from Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange, where it will begin trading on Oct. 6. The company intends to change the ticker symbol for the stock from “PSKY” to “SKYD.” It also intends to amend its certificate of incorporation to change the company’s name to “Skydance Corporation.”
“Paramount and Warner Bros. shaped over a century of culture,” Ellison wrote in a post on X Friday announcing the Skydance name, the first tweet on a newly created account. “By combining them, we aren’t rewriting history — we’re equipping these iconic studios with a more powerful engine. Together, we are Skydance: a creative-first home for bold, quality storytelling.”
Ellison continued, “We chose this name for a few important reasons. First and foremost, as we bring Paramount and Warner Bros. together, we wanted to preserve what has made each of these studios iconic. Both have distinct identities, extraordinary legacies and brands that have resonated with audiences for generations. We never wanted a new corporate identity to diminish, alter or overshadow either one. Instead, we wanted a name that would give the combined company an identity of its own while allowing Paramount and Warner Bros. — and all our extraordinary brands — to remain in the spotlight.”
“We have big goals for Skydance, and we intend to pursue them with passion, imagination and a willingness to take smart risks,” Ellison wrote. “At the same time, we will honor what makes Paramount and Warner Bros. special — giving both studios the opportunity to grow, tell more great stories and bring those stories to even broader audiences around the world, powered by the scale and capabilities of Skydance. I couldn’t be more excited about what we’re going to build together.”
Ellison ultimately prevailed in his yearlong campaign to swing a massive $111 billion deal to merge Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, including outbidding Netflix (which had an agreement to buy Warner Bros.’ streaming and studios businesses) and settling an antitrust lawsuit by 12 states seeking to block the deal.
The Paramount-Warner Bros. deal cleared its last hurdle after a judge overseeing the 12-state antitrust lawsuit on Sept. 30 approved the settlement between Paramount and the state attorneys general.
Industry wags had playfully dubbed the pending combo as “ParaBros” and “WarnerMount,” but no one expected either one of those to be the official company moniker.
Skydance will have a mountain of debt, projected to be north of $80 billion, after assuming the debt burdens of previous M&A incurred by Paramount and WBD and raising new debt financing. Paramount is issuing about $42.4 billion in bonds and is additionally taking out $8.5 billion and €850 million in new loans to help fund the Warner Bros. deal and repay existing debt.
The new company will be controlled by David Ellison and his father, Oracle founder and billionaire Larry Ellison, alongside Gerry Cardinale, founder and managing partner of RedBird Capital Partners.
Larry Ellison has personally guaranteed $46.7 billion in equity financing for the WBD takeover. In addition, Paramount has lined up about $24 billion in commitments from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. According to Paramount, the three Middle Eastern funds will own 38.5% of the combined Paramount-Warner Bros.
In addition to the hiring of Mattel’s Kreiz, the company’s new leadership is coming into focus.
Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, co-heads of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, will leave post-merger, sources told Variety. Paramount film heads Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein are in line to oversee both movie studios.
Meanwhile, Casey Bloys, head of WBD’s HBO and HBO Max, is poised to assume oversight of the combined Paramount-Warner Bros. streaming business after Cindy Holland announced to staffers that she was stepping down from her role running Paramount+ and other direct-to-consumer businesses. Ellison has held preliminary talks with CNN chief Mark Thompson about staying on after the merger, sources told Variety. The prospect of Thompson continuing at the helm came as a relief to CNN personnel, who have been worried that Bari Weiss, the “anti-woke” media entrepreneur Ellison put in charge of CBS News and “60 Minutes,” might extend her fiefdom to include the news cabler.
Here’s Ellison’s post [above] announcing the Skydance name, which includes a sizzle reel highlighting the merged companies’ entertainment properties [.]
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Channing Dungey Poised For Expanded Post-Merger Role Overseeing Paramount & WBD Cable Networks – The Dish
EXCLUSIVE: In addition to Casey Bloys and George Cheeks, the television/streaming structure of the combined Paramount-Warner Bros Discovery, recently named Skydance, would include expanded responsibilities for Channing Dungey who would be taking over the Paramount cable networks, I hear.
As Deadline revealed Friday, Cheeks, Paramount’s Chair of TV Media who currently oversees CBS Studios, is poised to add oversight of Warner Bros Television and Paramount Television Studios, with Dungey, Chairman and CEO, Warner Bros Television Group and US Networks, and PTVS President Matt Thunell both reporting to him alongside CBS Studios President David Stapf.
Continuing the streamlining trend of Skydance putting the combined Paramount and WBD TV studios under Cheeks, film studios under Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg and streamers (HBO Max and Paramount+) under Bloys, the company would be doing the same for the large array of cable networks it will own under Dungey, who also will continue to run the Warner Bros TV Group, sources said.
She would be adding oversight of the Paramount cable nets, which currently report to Cheeks, including the “core four” — MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and BET — as well as VH1, Paramount Network, TV Land, CMT, Pop TV and Logo TV.
That would be in addition to her current cable portfolio as head of US Networks, which features WBD’s linear TV brands including Discovery Channel, Food Network, HGTV, Investigation Discovery, TLC, Adult Swim, Animal Planet, Cartoon Network, HLN, OWN, TBS, TNT, Travel Channel, truTV and Turner Classic Movies. Channing would be reporting to Cheeks on both the studio and cable network side.
Reps for Paramount and Warner Bros TV declined comment.
With the move, Cheeks, whose domain is expanding to include two more TV studios and WBD’s cable portfolio as he takes charge of the combined company’s TV Studios and linear networks, including CBS and cable, is delegating day-to-day oversight of the cable brands to Dungey, a highly respected veteran TV executive who had begun executing her strategy for the WBD cable nets since adding the responsibility to her original job of running the Warner Bros television studio almost two years ago.
The new studio structure reaffirms Paramount CEO David Ellison’s faith in former Skydance TV President Thunell, who is put on the same level with two of the most decorated TV executives in the business who have decades of experience and oversee large portfolios in Dungey and Stapf. Under the setup, Dungey and Thunell, whose units both focus on development and production for streaming, are expected to work closely together.
Skydance is poised to unveil its official executive structure early next week, tied to Paramount’s acquisition of WBD closing Tuesday.
Dungey added oversight of Warner Bros Discovery’s basic cable networks at the end of 2024. She has led the unit through a period of uncertainty as WBD announced a plan to spin off its linear networks before Paramount emerged as a buyer for the entire portfolio. With her at the US Networks helm, Shark Week 2026 garnered its biggest ratings growth in more than a decade, Puppy Bowl delivered its largest audience in eight years, Food Network achieved its first quarter of ratings growth in five years (in Q1 2026), and HGTV posted its strongest year-over-year gains this year in nearly two decades.
Among the programming synergies between the cable networks and WBTV under Dungey are a Bachelor Mansion crossover with HGTV and The Pitt season 1 getting a run on TNT.
The large size of Paramount’s and WBD’s combined cable network footprint was a main antitrust concern in the lawsuit filed by 12 state attorneys general, with its settlement stipulating that “Paramount and Warner Brothers are required to continue negotiating their cable packages separately.”
Failure to comply would require Skydance to divest several Paramount brands including BET (BET, BET Gospel, BET Her, BET Hip-Hop, BET Jams,and BET Soul), VH1, Comedy Central, Smithsonian, Destination America and Science.
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More to come...
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Originally published: October 03, 2026.
