Bad newsSubscribers Refile Suit to Unwind Paramount-Warner Deal Over Streaming Prices
Consumers have refiled an antitrust suit against Paramount Skydance's $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, warning that a planned HBO Max and Paramount+ bundle means higher bills and fewer shows. The court has twice dismissed it.
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Subscribers who say they pay more for less have refiled a lawsuit to undo Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. The complaint went to a federal court in California on Thursday 12 November, the Hollywood Reporter says. The court has already dismissed the case twice, and the Reporter says this filing is believed to be the plaintiffs’ last chance to amend it.
The target is a bundle of HBO Max and Paramount+, planned for early 2027. Before the merger, the complaint argues, a subscriber unhappy with either service could move to the other, an independently owned rival. Both services now answer to one owner. The filing says the services may keep separate names and interfaces, according to the Reporter, but the owner has less reason to make them undercut each other on price or programming.
What the plaintiffs want, and what the owner has said
The consumers ask for a jury trial and a court order to unwind the $110 billion deal and the earlier Paramount Skydance merger. Failing that, they want assets sold, including HBO Max, CNN and Warner Bros.’ studio operations, TheWrap reports. They also want the two platforms kept separate by order, plus unspecified damages. They say they have already been hurt by higher Paramount+ prices since the takeover.
Skydance had not replied to either outlet’s request for comment. Its chief executive David Ellison said last month, after the merger closed, that the long-term plan is basically to bring the services together. He added this week that they will share the same back-end systems within the first year of closing, TheWrap reports.
The complaint leans on the company’s own cost plans as evidence. Ellison and co-chief executive Ynon Kreiz have set out at least $6 billion in annual savings, to come from real estate, labour, technology, marketing and procurement as well as consolidated back-office work. About 30% of the savings are due in the first year and 70% within two. The company says it will still spend $30 billion on content each year.
The filing also points to layoffs at Skydance Games, covered in an earlier story on 9 November, and to the removal of James Gunn and Peter Safran as heads of DC Studios. The plaintiffs say job cuts matter here as evidence of a strategy that can remove creative capacity, not as a separate claim for workers’ injuries. The Reporter says the savings will come in part from layoffs, consolidating property and a heavier reliance on AI.
The reach of the combined services is large. As of the third quarter, Paramount+, HBO Max and HBO had 203 million subscribers worldwide: 82.2 million for Paramount+ and 120.8 million for HBO Max and HBO, TheWrap says. The company will stop reporting subscriber counts quarterly from next quarter, so outsiders will have fewer numbers to track what any bundle does to prices.
The new complaint also cites the debt. The plaintiffs say the combined company has strong incentives to raise subscription revenue and cut overlapping operations while it services nearly $80 billion in net debt. The company has said at least $2.2 billion of the savings comes from consolidating back-office and corporate functions. It has not yet answered the specific claims in court.
None of this has been tested. Two earlier versions of the suit failed, a judge dismissed the first challenge in August, and the merger closed in October after separate legal settlements. A complaint is a set of allegations. What a viewer can check is simpler: whether the bundle arrives in early 2027, what it costs, and whether the number of new shows commissioned goes up or down once the savings begin.
