Paramount has completed its Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition, and the combined company is now called Skydance, according to its October 6, 2026 press release. The release says the companies’ streaming products will “unify into a single service over time,” which is the line HBO Max and Paramount+ subscribers should care about most. It offers no date, no price, and no app name. Nothing on your bill changes today, but the direction is now official instead of rumored.
TL;DR: Paramount closed its Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition on October 6, 2026, and the merged company is named Skydance. Its release promises one streaming service over time but gives no timeline, pricing, or app details. The people who will run streaming were named a day earlier. Until pricing appears, subscribers have nothing to act on yet.
What the Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition changes on day one
The legal and financial pieces moved first. Warner Bros. Discovery shares stopped trading on NASDAQ, and Skydance Class B shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
The company says it won unanimous approval from competition authorities in nearly 70 jurisdictions. That clears the biggest obstacle to the streaming plans that follow.
| Detail | What the release says |
|---|---|
| Deal completed | October 6, 2026 |
| Combined company name | Skydance |
| Stock ticker | SKYD on the NYSE |
| Cash paid to WBD shareholders | $31.01666668 per share |
| Regulatory approval | Unanimous, nearly 70 jurisdictions |
| Combined revenue | Nearly $70 billion |
| Streaming subscribers | 200+ million across platforms |
| Synergy target | $6 billion+ run-rate over three years |
The renaming is easy to miss. The company that owns Paramount+ and HBO Max is no longer called Paramount Skydance, and the release lists Pluto TV and CNN among the brands now under one roof.
A $6 billion savings target is the number to keep in mind, because savings of that size usually reshape products as well as payrolls.
What subscribers were told about HBO Max and Paramount+
The release promises “significant improvements” to direct-to-consumer streaming, which will “unify into a single service over time.” It says nothing about pricing, app names, or what happens to existing subscriptions.
If you pay for both services today, that silence is the whole story. Our earlier HBO Max and Paramount+ merger guide covers the overlap in detail, and nothing in this release resolves it.
The brand list in the release includes Paramount+, HBO and HBO Max, and Pluto TV. That gives the combined company two paid services and a free ad-supported one to arrange, and the release does not say how they will fit together.
Unifying two catalogs is the easy part. Deciding what one combined plan costs is the decision that will actually reach your credit card.
Who will run the streaming business
A leadership announcement from October 5, 2026 named the executives for Skydance’s direct-to-consumer arm. Casey Bloys, currently chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content, becomes co-chair and chief content officer of Skydance DTC.
JB Perrette, who led global streaming and games at Warner Bros. Discovery, becomes co-chair and chief business officer for DTC and TV. Dane Glasgow, a former Facebook product executive, is chief product officer.
Put together, the names suggest HBO’s content side and WBD’s streaming operators are carrying over. That points to the HBO Max experience shaping the merged product, though the release does not say so outright.
The film commitments that sit beside streaming
Skydance commits to at least 30 theatrical films a year, each with a minimum 45-day theatrical window. For viewers, that means a new Warner Bros. or Paramount release should spend at least six weeks in theaters before it can move to a streaming service.
The same release counts more than 200 million streaming subscribers across platforms, so the scale of what gets merged is already large. Any change to plans will touch a lot of households at once.
The promise covers theaters, not subscribers, but it sets the pace at which new movies will reach whatever the unified service becomes.
What to do with your subscriptions while this plays out
With no pricing announced, there is nothing to cancel or switch yet. If you are on an annual plan with either service, check your renewal date, since a combined offer could change what makes sense at renewal.
Monthly billing keeps your options open. The Sling Day Pass ending is a recent reminder that low-cost ways in can vanish with little notice.
Expect the next real news to be a pricing or app announcement, and that is the moment to compare plans again.
