Paramount Skydance completed its $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery today, after US Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan rejected a last-ditch request to block the deal. The combined company is now called Skydance, borrowing the name of the firm Paramount bought last year.
The new Skydance brings together two of Hollywood's biggest studios with the streaming services Paramount+ and HBO Max, the news networks CBS and CNN, and live sports including CBS Sports and TNT Sports, plus a large programming library and brand portfolio, the company said in a press release.
Warner Bros. Discovery merger: how the deal survived the courts
The merger was held up by a lawsuit filed by California and 11 other states. In July, US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín in the Northern District of California ruled the combination would likely reduce competition substantially and violate antitrust laws.
California settled last month and the other states accepted the compromise. Free speech and media advocacy groups urged the judge to reject the settlement, arguing it would give residents of the suing states virtually nothing, according to Ars Technica.
Martínez-Olguín approved the settlement on September 30, calling it a reasonable factual and legal resolution and noting that a compromise of this kind may leave some dissatisfaction for both sides and the public. The settlement requires minimum thresholds of investment and release of domestic films, and continued separate negotiations over distribution of the two companies' basic cable channels.
A separate lawsuit by five consumers failed at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Their emergency application to block the deal went to Kagan, who handles such requests for that circuit, and she denied it yesterday without comment.
