Paramount Says WBD Deal Would Help CBS Turnaround

Paramount, still in pursuit of acquiring all of Warner Bros. Discovery, views the potential deal as an “accelerant” to its ongoing reshaping of the CBS Sports parent company.

As Paramount reported its fiscal fourth quarter earnings late Wednesday, the company described its push for WBD as something that would hasten the company’s turnaround process. 

“While we are confident in our standalone strategy and growth trajectory for Paramount, we view WBD as an accelerant to achieving these goals more quickly, in a way that is economically compelling for Paramount shareholders,” Paramount chair and CEO David Ellison said in a letter to shareholders.

WBD, the parent company of TNT Sports, is reviewing Paramount’s updated bid to buy all of WBD. Late Tuesday, WBD said that the revised offer of $31 per share, plus other enhancements, could represent a “company superior proposal.” A firm decision, however, has not been made and WBD, as of now, continues to recommend Netflix’s $83 billion deal to buy WBD’s studios and streaming business—originally struck in December and recently converted to an all-cash structure.

There are significant sports media implications, regardless of how this ends, as the fate of TNT Sports hangs in the balance. In the Netflix deal, the operation would separate from WBD as part of a planned Discovery Global spin-off and embark on a separate, independent path from the WBD assets acquired by Netflix. In a Paramount deal, though, the entire company would be acquired, and the TNT Sports operations would be blended with those of CBS Sports.

Broader Results

Paramount, meanwhile, said it generated $8.1 billion in revenue for 2025’s fourth quarter, up 2%, while the quarterly net loss more than doubled from $224 million in the comparable period in 2024 to $573 million in the red for the most recent period. 

The company described the results as one reflecting a company very much in transition following last year’s merger with the Ellison-led Skydance Media. The quarter also included the beginning of about 2,000 job cuts, which will represent about 10% of Paramount’s workforce, in a push to gain $2 billion in cost savings. 

As part of the quarterly results, though, the company lauded its record-setting NFL broadcast on Thanksgiving between the Chiefs and Cowboys that drew more than 57 million viewers on average—the most ever for an NFL regular-season game—and highlighted the network’s best overall NFL season. The AFC championship game between the Patriots and Broncos, meanwhile, averaged 48.6 million viewers to rank as the most-watched postseason contest this year, with the exception of Super Bowl LX. 

Those results, the company believes, could be the start of what Paramount is hoping will be a renewal with the NFL. The league is set to reopen its domestic rights deals, a move that will bring higher costs and heightened financial pressure for networks. The company, however, said Wednesday it “wasn’t particularly concerned” about the pending renewal situation.

“Everything is really going well [with the NFL],” Paramount president Jeff Shell said. “We feel confident we’re going to be in business with the NFL for a long time.”

The company’s new rights deal with UFC, worth $7.7 billion over seven years, also received particular attention as that pact began in January, with UFC 324 getting viewership from 7 million households across the U.S. and Latin America. That represented the largest exclusive live event to date for the Paramount+ streaming service. 

“We couldn’t be more thrilled about the way the UFC partnership has started,” Ellison said in a call with analysts. “The partnership has started ahead of expectations, and we’ve seen UFC engaged with our other content and that flywheel working.”