British regulators cleared Paramount Skydance’s $81 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Thursday, removing a significant obstacle for one of the entertainment industry’s largest mergers while U.S. approval remains outstanding.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ruled that the tie-up would not result in a “substantial lessening of competition” in the country, finding no material threat to film distribution, children’s television or other markets. The country’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport separately said it would not intervene on media plurality grounds.
Both bodies had initially flagged concerns. The CMA cited competition, while the culture department worried about the diversity of news, television and streaming services available to UK consumers. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy had earlier signalled she was “minded to intervene” before Paramount offered concessions.
The clearance came only after Paramount agreed to a set of “legally-binding commitments” governing its footprint in UK broadcasting and on-demand entertainment. The company pledged to safeguard the “continued availability of a diverse range of broadcasting and on-demand services in the UK,” along with their editorial independence.
Paramount welcomed the decisions, calling the UK’s clearance “an important milestone” toward completing the purchase. The company was itself acquired by Skydance just one year ago, following an $8.4 billion merger between Skydance Media and Paramount Global.
A combined Paramount-Warner entity would bring HBO Max, the Harry Potter franchise and CNN under the same roof as CBS, Top Gun and the Paramount+ streaming service. Both firms hold substantial UK assets, including Paramount-owned Channel 5, localised Nickelodeon programming and Warner’s British arm of TNT Sports.
The deal has drawn scrutiny across multiple markets and industries. Earlier this year, cinema operators and theater industry leaders raised objections over the potential concentration of Hollywood’s release pipeline under a single owner.
Valuations of the transaction have varied, with figures ranging from roughly $81 billion to $110 billion cited depending on the metrics used, reflecting the complexity of combining the two media portfolios.
Despite Thursday’s approval, the merger still faces regulatory review in the United States and other jurisdictions before it can close. The path forward remains contingent on antitrust authorities weighing the combined company’s reach across production, distribution and streaming.