#paramount-skydance

#paramount-skydance

The US media and entertainment giant Paramount Skydance has won the auction for the rights to broadcast most Champions League matches in the UK from 2027 to 2031 in a major shake-up of the domestic rights market. The Guardian has learned that Paramount, whose subsidiary company Paramount+ owns the rights for Champions League games in the US, made the largest bid in this week's auction and an announcement is due.

The publication said the company formed an investment consortium with the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi to submit a $71bn bid for Warner Bros Discovery. The report said Paramount Skydance would contribute about $50bn towards the proposed acquisition with the remainder coming from the wealth funds. Paramount Skydance has described the involvement of the sovereign wealth funds as categorically inaccurate.

Paramount Skydance, backed by the family of CEO David Ellison, is getting ready to make a bid to take over all of Warner Bros. Discovery before the two companies can go through with their plan to split, per a new report from The Wall Street Journal. If such a deal happens, it would put networks as diverse as CBS, CNN, TCM, and MTV under one roof and result in the combination of two historic Hollywood studios, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros.

On Thursday evening, the Federal Communications Commission voted to approve Paramount's $8.4 billion merger with fellow entertainment firm Skydance Media, a deal that took considerable lobbying from the Trump administration and connections to Larry Ellison.