{"id":276491,"date":"2025-11-07T03:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T03:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/276491\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T03:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T03:56:07","slug":"comcast-hires-bankers-to-explore-wbd-bid-eyes-itv-broadcasting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/276491\/","title":{"rendered":"Comcast Hires Bankers To Explore WBD Bid; Eyes ITV Broadcasting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tComcast<\/a> has hired Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, Deadline has confirmed, to explore a bid for Warner Bros studios and streaming as the sale process around WBD heats up.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeparately, the Philadelphia-based media giant, parent of Sky<\/a> in the UK is also said to be in talks to acquire the broadcasting business of ITV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tLast week, Netflix retained investment bank Moelis & Co.<\/a> to evaluate a potential offer, also for Warner Bros Discovery\u2019s studio and streaming. WBD jumpstarted the process last month when it announced it was exploring strategic alternatives after receiving expressions of interest from multiple parties to buy all or part of the company. WBD had been set to split in half next year, separating studios and streaming from linear television into two standalone companies called Warner Bros and Discovery Global.<\/p>\n

\n\tDavid Ellison\u2019s newly merged Paramount Skydance has offered to buy the entire company in three escalating proposals that pushed WBD to open a formal auction. Amazon MGM also has expressed interest.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: Comcast Sees Tough Q3 Comps From Paris Olympics Last Year But Beats Forecasts; Epic Universe Revs Up<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tWarner is open to a sale of all or parts of its business, and CEO David Zasvlav said today that it has \u201can active process underway\u201d<\/a> exploring a sale, which the company ideally would like to have some clarity on by year end, or a split, which the company said could happen by mid-2026.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe media giant has created a data room where interested parties that sign confidentiality agreements can examine its books.<\/p>\n

\n\tReuters first reported on Comcast tapping bankers. The company is itself set to spin off its linear cable networks into a new company called Versant, a process that should be completed early next year.<\/p>\n

\n\tBloomberg was first out with the talks for ITV\u2019s broadcasting arm. That does not include ITV Studios, which has itself been the target of lively merger speculation<\/a>. ITV earlier today provided its latest financial update<\/a> including additional cost savings at the Media & Entertainment division, which houses its linear networks and streamer\u00a0ITVX<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tComcast acquired pay-TV giant Sky in 2018 in a deal worth $40 billion. Sky sold its German arm, Sky\u00a0Deutschland, to RTL<\/a> Group in June for $175 million. <\/p>\n

\n\tA rep for Comcast declined to comment on the WBD or ITV reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Comcast has hired Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, Deadline has confirmed, to explore a bid for Warner Bros…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[6969,88,27709,10265,92,10343,5251],"class_list":{"0":"post-276491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-comcast","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-itv","11":"tag-sky","12":"tag-tv","13":"tag-warner-bros-discovery","14":"tag-warner-bros"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}