Merging Paramount+ and HBO Max is still long-term plan confirms David Ellison
Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison has confirmed the long-term goal is to combine Paramount+ and HBO Max, a streaming merger that will surely alter the commissioning landscape in multiple markets where the services both operate.
During a press conference on Tuesday after the Paramount Skydance (PSKY) and Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) merger officially closed, Ellison said that in the short term, the idea is to operate the services separately with the goal of offering a discounted bundle. Over the long term, “the plan is basically to bring them together,” he explained.
The confirmation comes around seven months after Ellison first laid out plans to merge the services, which have more than 220 million global subscribers combined – more than 140 million for HBO Max and 81.6 million for Paramount.
However, that notion was called into question last week when Casey Bloys, Skydance’s new co-chair and chief creative officer of direct-to-consumer, claimed the aim might be to keep the services separate. A subsequently released corporate deck showing the two streaming services named individually fuelled the rumour the streamers may remain separate over the long term.
Ellison appeared to put the idea to bed this week with his comments. But the combination is not likely to be swift, as it will involve migrating HBO Max on to the tech stack already used by Paramount+, Pluto TV and BET+.
Ellison did not provide a timeline for the streaming merger, which will have significant implications for the teams working under the Paramount+ and HBO Max banners, in addition to producers making shows for them and rights holders licensing content to them.
The impact is likely to be felt most acutely in the US, where HBO Max and Paramount+ greenlight the lion’s share of their scripted and unscripted shows. The job of bringing those teams and services together falls to Bloys, who recently signed a new long-term contract that will keep him at Skydance until at least 2032.
Industry watchers will be observing with interest to see how the merger impacts markets including the UK, Australia, Canada, Spain and Latin America.
In the UK, for example, HBO and HBO Max do not have local commissioners, with Bloys repeatedly saying there is no need for a dedicated British team given how much content HBO coproduces and films in the country. It remains to be seen whether that stance is revisited as PSKY and WBD are integrated, particularly given that streaming rivals Netflix and Prime Video have put such a focus on the UK market.
Paramount+, for its part, has commissioned UK scripted originals including The Crow Girl and The Revenge Club, while also shooting crime drama MobLand, starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren, in the country. It also recently commissioned Laird, a drama set in the modern Scottish Highlands and starring Kenneth Branagh.
In Australia, Paramount+ has commissioned more than 30 local originals since it launched in 2021, including NCIS: Sydney, Ghosts Australia and Last King of the Cross, while HBO Max has not commissioned any local content since entering the market in March 2025.
Across Latin America, Paramount+ commissioned over 20 originals in 2021 and more than 30 in 2022 before dropping to three in 2023, according to Ampere Analysis data. Since then, it has largely been dormant across the region in terms of original commissions. At the same time, HBO Max continues to commission a significant volume of originals across Mexico, Argentina and Brazil.
There are also question marks around the Canadian market, where HBO Max has never launched due to a lucrative output agreement that sees Bell Media exclusively licensing all HBO and HBO Max programming for its streamer Crave and other platforms. Bell Media president Sean Cohan has insisted on several occasions that the output agreement will last for many more years – and that there is no “change of ownership” provision in the deal, meaning PSKY’s takeover of WBD would not void it.
Paramount+’s UK-shot crime drama MobLand
Regardless of how the commissioning landscape evolves, Ellison has claimed the goal of the merger is to expand, not reduce, overall content output. Many have openly questioned that position, given the combined company has to service around US$80bn in debt and the fact that sports rights, including deals like Paramount’s US$7.7bn seven-year pact for Ultimate Fighting Championship rights, will diminish the appetite to spend on series and films.
As it stands, the newly merged company has committed to making at least 180 shows a year, although it isn’t yet clear what the split will be across its various domestic and international networks and streamers.
In the press release confirming the completion of the merger, Skydance committed to continuing to continue working with the independent creative community globally.
“Skydance starts from a position of strength: the most diverse film and television library of any studio, the largest theatrical output in the industry, 200-plus million streaming subscribers across platforms, an iconic broadcast network, an unmatched sports portfolio, and a franchise portfolio spanning Top Gun and Harry Potter to White Lotus and SpongeBob SquarePants,” it said.
“From this foundation, Skydance is committed to delivering for the creative community and consumers, with at least 30 theatrical films annually, each with a minimum 45-day theatrical window, and already boasts 180-plus television shows. Across TV and streaming, Skydance will also continue to support the independent production sector by commissioning content from independent studios and licensing its own content to third parties, creating more opportunities and more jobs for creatives, both in front of and behind the camera.”
