An HBO Max-Paramount+ package will launch in early 2027, Skydance CEO David Ellison confirmed in a letter to shareholders on Monday.
The bundle was announced, but not the timing of its launch, which was revealed with a set of third-quarter results. Pricing remains an open question, but as with Disney or other companies creating their own bundles, there will likely be a significant financial incentive for consumers to sign up for the bundle rather than each individual service.
The merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Skydance’s $110 billion Discovery wrapped in early October, meaning the July-September earnings report is a pretty hazy snapshot. Yet in one of the few pro forma metrics the company offers reflecting what the outcome would have been if WBD and Paramount had merged on Jan. 1, 2025, Skydance said the direct-to-consumer division’s pro forma revenue rose 15% year over year in the third quarter.
In the current fourth quarter, the letter said, “we expect continued strong DTC revenue growth.” And by 2030, the company hoped to have shifted “a significant majority of television revenues and profits to our streaming and studio businesses” to counter the secular decline in linear viewing and advertising.
Ellison has publicly stated several times that the ultimate goal is to merge HBO Max and Paramount+ into a single service, although this feat will be complicated both in terms of technological advancement and strategic details.
“The long-term plan is basically to bring them together,” Ellison said at a news conference to mark the closing of the merger. “It’ll take some time to get there. So I think in the immediate future you’ll see them operating separately, with things like bundling or things you might see accelerated in the relatively short term. I can’t be specific on that yet today.”
WBD had been quite aggressive in participating in bundles with HBO Max, especially as it looked to give its ad-supported tier a boost. The company’s third-party bundle with Disney+ and Hulu was one of the first examples of competitors teaming up on a bundle.
Before the merger, Paramount’s direct-to-consumer revenue growth increased 11% from the year-ago period to $2.5 billion, although that number also carries a bit of an asterisk due to the August 2025 closing of the Skydance-Parmount merger. Paramount’s average revenue per user, or ARPU, increased 14% and subscribers increased 6% during the period, Skydance said. The integration of BET+ into Paramount+ took place in the second quarter of 2025 but generated a full quarter of financial profit in the third quarter. Along with Showtime’s declines, the integration of BET+ dampened total DTC growth by 6%.
Adjusted EBITDA for Paramount Skydance’s DTC unit was $225 million, a margin of 9%. The investor letter noted the impact of “higher costs related to planned investments in our programming schedule during the quarter, including UFC and continued investments in originals.”
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