Warner Bros. Is Officially for Sale. It's Paramount vs. ... Whom?

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt is joined by Peter Supino, a managing director and senior analyst at Wolfe Research, to unpack the deal market for Warner Bros. Discovery, running through each potential bidder, who makes the most sense, and what a merger would look like in each scenario (03:13). Matt finishes the show with an opening weekend box office prediction for ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’ (30:45). For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, ‘What I’m Hearing ...,’ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Email us your thoughts! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thetown@spotify.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Host: Matt Belloni Guest: Peter Supino Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Theme Song: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone, it's Amy Polar, and I'm launching a new podcast called Good Hang.
0:05.0	In preparation for that, I asked some of my friends to send in some videos and give me some advice.
0:10.0	Just be yourself and the guests will come.
0:13.0	Don't be the celebrity that this is their like sixth thing they're doing.
0:16.0	I love true crime and cooking podcasts. Is there any way you could combine the two? Well, everyone has an opinion
0:23.2	and a podcast. So, join me for good hang. It's rough out there. We're just trying to lighten it up a little.
0:31.5	It is Wednesday, October 22nd. It's been less than three months since the Paramount studio finally changed hands after
0:39.3	18 months of ups and downs and Trump and nonsense and such. And now we're going to do it all over
0:45.0	again. On Tuesday, our guy David Zazlov, he sent up the bad signal and made it official what we
0:50.2	all kind of known. Warner Brothers' discovery is for sale.
0:59.4	Zazlov had wanted to wait to sell stuff until he split the company into the good side,
1:05.3	like HBO Max and Warner Film and TV Studio, which he would run, and the bad cable networks,
1:05.9	which he wouldn't.
1:11.3	But now the board said they've received inquiries for all or some of the company and would review, quote, strategic alternatives, the dreaded words. That means selling everything now or parts of
1:17.2	the company now or waiting until the split. They can still do that. The caveat there is that if someone
1:22.2	were to buy the good assets before the split, they'd incur a tax penalty. And if the split does go forward,
1:28.3	there would probably be a waiting period after till a deal could be beneficial for tax purposes.
1:34.0	But the question begs, who exactly is buying this company? We know Paramount, the Ellison's,
1:40.2	they've submitted two separate bids, most recent for about $24 a share. The board rejected that
1:46.4	is too low. But beyond the Ellison, it's still kind of an open question. Comcast, Netflix, Amazon,
1:53.5	Apple. We've discussed these options before. All of them have upsides and downside. Both Netflix and
1:59.1	Apple have downplayed any potential bid. And remember,
	...

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