Hollywood is abuzz with a tentative planned Warner Bros. Discovery split, and the potential for another major studio to buy WBD. In all of the talk around WBD’s future and Paramount Skydance putting together multiple bids, it’s become obvious that Apple should buy WBD.
Detail of an Apple TV device, taken on November 4, 2015. (Photo by Gavin Roberts/MacFormat Magazine/Future via Getty Images)
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Apple has the most valuable cash machine in business: a Services division north of $100 billion that smooths out hardware cycles and underwrites the company’s valuation. But one piece of that flywheel still underperforms: Apple TV, the streaming service. It has the awards, taste and talent. What it lacks is scale.
Warner Bros. Discovery By The Numbers
WBD owns HBO/Max, Warner Bros. Pictures, DC, CNN, Discovery, TNT Sports and more. But it’s still carrying a heavy debt load from the 2022 merger.
This summer, WBD announced a plan to split to into two publicly traded businesses, one for streaming and movies and another for cable and TV, to “unlock value” and let each side focus on its own strategy. Soon after the announcement, Fitch downgraded WBD’s credit rating to junk, citing concerns about leverage and smaller, less diversified post-split companies.
The Streaming/Studios company, consisting of HBO/Max, Warner Bros. Pictures/TV, DC and the major libraries, would concentrate on growing Max globally and on studio profitability. The Global Networks company, consisting of cable and international channels like CNN, Discovery, TNT Sports and Discovery+, would manage traditional TV assets and related digital products.
The idea is that Streaming/Studios can invest and scale without being tied to cable’s structural decline, while Networks can be run for cash with its own capital structure and targets. Public guidance has pointed to global expansion for Max and a mid-2026 timeline to finalize the separation.
Parallel to the split, there’s active takeover talk. David Ellison and Paramount Skydance have already made multiple rejected bids on WBD, likely with private-equity partners, though nothing is agreed and financing is the big question. This follows Paramount’s own Skydance deal closing and would be a massive consolidation play against Netflix, Disney and Amazon.
Some rumors and reports suggest the split is at least partly defensive. Zaslav can smartly argue that breaking up WBD creates more shareholder value than selling the whole thing.
So, as of the end of October, the plan is a split targeted for mid-2026. But acquisition interest is real, and while analysts and trade press game-out scenarios, other tech and media giants are considering bids.
Why Warner Bros. Discovery And Apple Would Meant To Be
Now this is where Apple comes in and changes the ballgame.
If Apple wants to secure the next decade of Services growth and reduce regulatory exposure, as well as finally pairing premium storytelling with a mass audience, there’s a simple answer: buy Warner Bros. Discovery.
WBD is a bundle of arguably irreplaceable institutions and franchises, with a streaming base and advertising stack that would drop directly into Apple’s Services P&L on day one. And it’s a balance sheet puzzle only Apple can solve elegantly.
WBD generated roughly $39 billion in 2024 revenue and carries a large, proven DTC footprint built around HBO/Max. Folding that into Apple is a one-step solution to TV scale and Services concentration risk, instantly lifting Services revenue and hardening Apple One against rivals’ bundles. It’s difficult to imagine another acquisition that moves the Services needle so cleanly, because there isn’t one.
The logic is straightforward. Apple TV nailed the quality brief, WBD supplies quantity and a back catalog to keep households from churning. HBO remains television’s gold standard, Discovery’s unscripted library fills the everyday viewing gaps, and the Warner film archive does the rest. On integration, Apple doesn’t have to change who it is creatively, just scale the thing that already works.
The common objection is WBD’s debt. For any media peer, it’s a creative handcuff that forces near-term cost cutting and IP strip-mining. For Apple, it’s the opportunity. Apple can refinance that debt at superior rates, clearing the creative runway and effectively treating the obligation as a purchase price reduction on world-class assets. That single maneuver is arguably the most valuable part of the deal for creatives and shareholders.
Apple has historically avoided mega-mergers and acquisitions, but this is the rare case where its balance sheet is a decisive strategic weapon. No one else can buy the equity and also neutralize the debt burden without compromising the assets they’re buying.
Apple’s design-led and quality-over-volume culture aligns with WBD’s prestige brands and empowers top storytellers and technologists far better than a synergy-driven consolidator whose first step is headcount spreadsheets. HBO gets air cover to be HBO again. DC gets a coherent, patient long-term plan with creative vision in the driver’s seat, instead of whiplash from reboots and fear a new owner will replace leadership. And Warner’s feature slate stops living quarter to quarter.
The “why now” isn’t just streaming, either. WBD’s franchises are ecosystem multipliers inside Apple’s hardware and software stack. Consider the implications…
Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings anchor must-have event series for Apple TV and supply AAA game worlds that can validate Apple’s M-series gaming ambitions across Mac, iPad and Apple TV. Owning LoTR also gives Apple leverage to end the IP fragmentation that dulls the brand’s value.
Meanwhile, Dune is tailor-made for Apple Vision Pro: high-fidelity world-building that sells spatial video, immersive experiences and premium headsets. It’s “killer content” in a single word, and after the third film it will be among the iconic franchises to define the first half of 21st century cinema.
And Barbie proved it’s a merchandising and zeitgeist catalyst. With Apple’s retail footprint and marketing discipline, that flywheel spins even faster, broader and more profitably. Likewise, MonsterVerse brings dependable global tentpoles and a theatrical-to-streaming funnel, plus obvious gaming/interactive opportunities.
Now layer Harry Potter on top. The Wizarding World remains among the most lucrative, multi-platform franchises ever. But it’s under-leveraged in TV, interactive and spatial computing. Apple’s differentiated strengths can unlock the next wave of monetization with event-caliber series, premium games and immersive experiences from Quidditch POV to a Great Hall viewing environment, while reinforcing device demand.
Yes, the Rowling controversy is a real brand risk. But it’s also manageable with a proactive, values-forward approach. Financially decouple new content from the perception of funding her activism, re-center the franchise around its core themes of acceptance, recruit diverse creative leadership and where contracts allow restructure participation toward lump-sum buy-downs to blunt boycott incentives. That’s both the right thing to do and the commercially smart thing.
A traditional mega-merger of Paramount–Skydance with WBD promises scale, cost synergies and one gigantic catalog. It also likely means aggressive cuts, elevated leverage and pressure to monetize IP quickly, conditions that historically damage prestige brands like HBO and fragile rebuilds like DC Studios. By contrast, Apple supplies patient capital, a tech platform that amplifies IP value, and a culture that rewards fewer, better bets. If the goal is long-term value creation and artistic freedom, then Apple is the superior steward.
The deal doesn’t have to be “buy everything, forever.” Structure matters. Focus the core on Studios/Streaming. Target Warner Bros. Pictures, HBO/Max and the flagship IP libraries as the strategic heart of the transaction that directly scale Services. Refinance on Day 1. Replace high-interest debt with Apple’s cost of capital to free the slate. Stage the linear unwind. Non-core cable assets can be managed for cash while Apple plans compliant exits. The goal is not to become a cable operator but to control the IP that powers Services and hardware.
But the window is closing. Media is consolidating into a few gravity wells. If Apple sits this one out, a rival will buy the last great studio library at scale and render Apple TV a permanent boutique. If Apple acts, then it converts WBD from a distressed, debt-constrained asset into the missing flywheel in its Services machine, and it does so in a way that strengthens Apple’s ecosystem from Vision Pro to Apple One.
With Warner Bros. Discovery, the future of Apple’s Services business and its narrative as home of the best-made stories gets a lot simpler, because it owns the very brands that defined prestige to begin with. Time to make the call.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2025/10/30/why-apple-should-buy-warner-bros-discovery/