Media giant Warner Brothers Discovery (WBD) has firmly rejected Paramount’s late bid of US$108 billion to take over all its operations and assets.

The WBD Board of Directors favour Netflix’s offer to acquire its streaming and studio businesses.

In a stinging letter to David Ellison, who heads Paramount Skydance, WBD said: Inferior. We urge shareholders to accept Netflix’s offer of $27.75 per share for streaming and studio assets. Paramount’s offer provides inadequate value and imposes numerous significant risks and costs. A major concern is the $40.65 billion equity offer, which includes no Ellison family commitment of any kind. The Paramount offer is not in the best interest of WBD and its stockholders. The Netflix offer is superior on multiple fronts.”

Netflix’s Co-CEO said its offer presented less regulatory risk. Netflix sees HBO and Warner’s vast library of content as the most valuable prize, helping to make Netflix the unassailable streaming market leader. 

It has no appetite for Warner’s pay-TV channels.

Assets like CNN and TNT look likely to be spun off into a separate company. 

CEO of Paramount Skydance, David Ellison, will become an even bigger player in Hollywood and international media.

The son of legendary billionaire and Oracle founder, Larry Ellison, David is no nepo-baby. He has made his presence felt through talent and has made Skydance a major force.

When his family bought Paramount, it was doing eight movies a year. Within the next five years, David Ellison wants to take that to twenty movies a year.

David Ellison is a big supporter of the news business and could be its biggest champion since Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch.

“We want to build a scaled news service that is, basically, fundamentally in the trust business that is in the truth business and that speaks to 70 per cent of Americans that are in the middle. And we believe that by doing that, by doing so, that is, for us, kind of doing well while doing good. We believe in that business model, and we believe it’s essential.”

To look to take WBD whole is audacious and speaks to David Ellison’s ambition. He is looking to marry tech with media and may very well up the ante, putting in yet another bid. He is unbowed.

It is clear he wants to acquire WBD and remains unperturbed.

In a letter to WBD, David Ellison wrote: “ It would be the honour of a lifetime to be your partner and to be the owner of these iconic assets…We are always loyal and honourable to our partners and hope we have the opportunity to prove that to you.”