Netflix ditches deal for Warner Bros. Discovery after Paramount's offer is deemed superior

Netflix has abandoned its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming assets after the WBD board deemed Paramount Skydance’s revised all-cash offer of $31 per share for the entire company superior to Netflix’s $27.75 per share proposal.

The withdrawal removes the final major obstacle. It fully clears the pathway for Paramount, controlled by billionaire Larry Ellison and his son David Ellison, to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery outright.

This transaction hands father and son Larry and David Ellison a commanding media monopoly, consolidating Warner Bros. film and television studios, the vast Warner library, CNN, TBS, TNT and extensive streaming platforms under single private control.

Far more is at stake than conventional consolidation.

It is rumored that behind these moves, there is a clandestine initiative known inside Oracle circles as Project OracleVision. According to three executives familiar with early briefings, the project combines Oracle’s AI division with engineers recruited from OpenAI, Palantir, and TikTok’s algorithm teams. Its reported goal: to develop a system capable of mapping and predicting public sentiment across all major platforms — from CBS broadcasts to social-media feeds.

One source called it “a newsroom that listens to America in real time.” Another described it as “a digital nervous system for media power.”

If true, acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery supplies the Ellisons with unmatched proprietary content libraries, nationwide broadcast and cable distribution networks, and real-time audience data streams. This integration creates a vertically fused empire where Oracle’s cloud and AI infrastructure can directly ingest and analyze every piece of generated media, enabling precise, instantaneous sentiment mapping and predictive influence across the entire information ecosystem.

WBD CEO David Zaslav called the impending merger “tremendously valuable.” Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters acknowledged their offer was simply a “nice to have” at the right price.

The Ellison family now stands on the threshold of an extraordinary convergence of legacy media dominance and cutting-edge artificial intelligence.