The following is a guest piece written by Kaitlyn McInnis, executive director and integrated investment lead at Crossmedia. Opinions are the author’s own.
In recent years, the media landscape has been defined by frequent consolidation, from Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox to the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger and recently, Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount. At the same time, platform leaders like Google, Amazon and Netflix are capturing a growing share of consumer attention and advertising investment, fundamentally changing the industry's power dynamics. For legacy media companies, the race is no longer about content and efficiency: it’s about building the scale, distribution, data and technology infrastructure and financial foundations required to compete in an increasingly fragmented marketplace.
While every transaction is grounded in its own motivations, they all point to the same conclusion: Legacy media’s evolution is necessary, and it is incumbent upon the advertising community to promote and embrace that transformation. Not only are these changes affecting the way consumers experience content, but they also impact the way advertisers choose to partner with platforms and how agencies are evaluating long-term investments.
This is why Paramount’s proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery matters.
A federal judge set a March 2027 trial date for the proposed merger, and while the outcome of this merger remains uncertain, the trajectory of our industry is not. Consolidations are not singular disruptions, but the new norm, and success will lie with organizations that anticipate change instead of merely reacting to it.
With litigation from a coalition of state attorneys general, a Writers Guild of America motion and UK scrutiny, there have been major hurdles for this deal. Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders approved the deal in April, the DOJ closed its investigation in June and the European Union’s antitrust authority backed the merger in late July. The latest court developments reinforce that advertisers should expect Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery to continue operating as separate companies for the foreseeable future. Regardless of how the litigation ultimately unfolds, the intent should be the same: building strategies that accommodate uncertainty and remaining flexible through the twists and turns.
With many variables still at play, here’s how we’re evaluating the merger and preparing brand clients for what could come next:
- Making decisions based on what we know today. With upfront commitments still being finalized, planning must be based on what we know now versus our best guess about the future. Until the transaction is complete, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery should be evaluated as independent organizations and we must keep an eye on potential synergies in content, audience and pricing.
- Preparing for multiple scenarios. While the legal process continues, it’s important to prepare for multiple outcomes rather than assume a single path forward. Warner Bros. Discovery could remain independent or engage other buyers, putting more partnership alternatives on the table. So it’s incumbent upon us, as we solidify today’s investments, to keep flexibility at the heart of our plans.
- Evaluating every nuance through a client-specific lens. No two advertisers will experience this merger in exactly the same way. One specific example is CNN. The media stalwart’s future remains one of several open questions that could influence long-term strategies for clients and categories where news plays an outsized role. Rather than making broad assumptions about potential outcomes, we should evaluate every implication against clients’ objectives, priorities, competitive concerns and measurement needs.
- Anticipating a different competitive landscape. Just as clients and agencies prepare for this change, media companies are bracing for impact and preparing their own responses via new partnerships, offerings and capabilities. While the competitive balance continues to shift, we need to appreciate and understand how other media outlets will reposition themselves in response.
- Accepting the call to partner in bigger and better ways. Consolidation is intimidating, but it creates larger, more sophisticated ecosystems with greater advertiser opportunity beyond the 30-second spot. Clients and agencies should focus on strategic partnerships vs. transactional buying, leveraging integrated content, tech advancements and commerce solutions to drive value for consumers and ultimately raise the industry bar for what we can achieve together.
This merger is one of many that our industry has faced and will continue to face in the coming years. The Paramount / Warner Bros. Discovery merger is less about a specific transaction and more about how we, as an industry, prepare for this ongoing reality. The organizations that will thrive are those that embrace the uncertainty and build media partnerships grounded in flexibility, integration and future potential.
