Last week, David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance agreed to delay the closing of its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery until June 2027 as it confronts a legal challenge from a coalition of 12 state attorneys general. The delay gives the companies more time to defend the transaction in court. It also gives almost everything that threatens the transaction more time to get worse.
Paramount already faces an imposing collection of headwinds: shifting legal counsel, declining cable subscriptions, a fragile architecture of financing and an impending “ticking fee” that will increase the cost of delay. But the company’s greatest challenge in the year ahead may be time itself. As Vince Lombardi reportedly said after a close loss: “We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time.” Hollywood has seen this movie before, and only a decade ago.
