On Friday, the Warner Bros. Discovery bidding war came to an end, as Netflix declined to match Paramount Skydance’s offer, which had been determined as the “superior” offer by the WBD board.

Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters said in a joint statement that “the transaction we negotiated would have created shareholder value with a clear path to regulatory approval. However, we’ve always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid. Warner Bros. is a world-class organization, and we want to thank David Zaslav, Gunnar Wiedenfels, Bruce Campbell, Brad Singer and the WBD Board for running a fair and rigorous process. We believe we would have been strong stewards of Warner Bros.’ iconic brands, and that our deal would have strengthened the entertainment industry and preserved and created more production jobs in the US. But this transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price.”

Shares of Netflix ended nearly 14% higher on Friday following the company’s exit in the race for Warner Bros. Discovery. Shares of WBD have fell slightly on Friday (-3%) while shares of Paramount Skydance shares rose 20% following the news.

Paramount Skydance’s “superior” offer

Paramount’s final, and so-called “superior” offer, is a cash offer of USD 31 per share that values WBD at about USD 111 billion including net debt, and covers the entire group of Warner Bros. Discovery. The deal also leans heavily on deal protections designed to address financing and regulatory risk. It includes a USD 7 billion reverse termination fee if regulators block the deal, and commitments around costs tied to unwinding the existing Netflix arrangement, including the USD 2.8 billion termination fee that WBD owes Netflix for walking away from their initial agreement.

Netflix’s offer differed both in terms of the amount and the assets. Netflix had been pursuing a narrower deal for Warner’s studio and streaming operations, priced at USD 27.75 per share and valuing those assets at roughly USD 82.7 billion including debt.

HBO Max & Paramount+ to merge

Paramount Skydance plans to combine HBO Max and Paramount+ into one streaming service, chief executive David Ellison announced during a call with investors on Monday. Ellison said combining the two platforms would give the company more than 200 million direct-to-consumer subscribers.

“We think that really positions us to compete with the leaders in the space,” Ellison said.

Mediavision’s Principal Analyst Fredrik Liljeqvist commented on the news in Dagens Nyheter, saying that the acquisition should be seen as a way to better compete with players such as Netflix and YouTube.

“They are merging their valuable film and content libraries to better meet the competition,” Liljeqvist commented.

Paramount executives have not offered details on how subscriptions would be priced or what the new service would be called. However, Ellison said he wants HBO to remain and “operate with independence”.

“Our viewpoint is HBO should stay HBO. And they built a phenomenal brand,” Ellison said.

Though Ellison expressed confidence the deal would not face problems with regulators, the merger still faces possible hurdles and a backlash from critics worried about increasing media consolidation.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s Q4 report

The day before the bidding war came to an end, Warner Bros. Discovery presented its Q4 earnings report, thereby concluding the Q4 earnings season for the media industry. Here are a few of the highlights of what was reported:

• – Total revenues were USD 9.5 billion; a 7% ex-FX (currency adjusted) decrease from the prior year quarter.
• – Total Adjusted EBITDA was USD 2.2 billion in Q4, a 20% ex-FX decrease compared to the prior year quarter, primarily driven by a decline in the Global Linear Networks segment.
• – Streaming subscribers reached 131.6 million in Q4 2025, an increase of 3.5 million customers quarter-on-quarter (QOQ, amid an increased international rollout for HBO Max, in Germany and Italy among others.

The format originates from China, where it is projected to surpass USD 9.4 billion last year. But the trend has now grown significantly in other parts of the world, including the Nordics.

In January, TikTok launched an app named Pinedrama, which is a standalone platform for micro dramas. The app is initially targeting the US and Brazil and focuses on 60–90 second episodes, often with romance or supernatural themes.

Disney has also bought into the trend. The company has recently launched its first micro drama, named Locker Diaries. Designed for vertical viewing, the series features characters from Zombies, Descendants and Phineas & Ferb in bite-size adventures that blend comedy, drama and thrills. The first two Zombies-themed episodes of the 11-part series are now available to stream on Disney+ and the Disney Channel YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.

Erin Teague, EVP of Product Management for Disney Entertainment and ESPN, previously said “everything’s on the table” regarding how vertical video is delivered on Disney+.

“We’re obviously thinking about integrating vertical video in ways that are native to core user behaviors,” Teague said. “So, it won’t be a kind of a disjointed, random experience,” she said.

Tomorrow, the first Swedish micro drama will be released on Instagram and TikTok. Blogger Alexandra Nilsson is bringing her famous persona Kissie back to life. The new comedy series “Kissie’s Back” consists of 22 episodes of 1–2 minutes and is produced by BBC Studios Sweden.

Dagens Media reports that SVT is also entering the micro drama space. The Swedish public service broadcaster is currently re-editing material into micro dramas, which was confirmed by SVT’s Communications Manager Catarina Wilson.

“It is true that we are looking at how we could tell important stories about, for example, children’s reality in a vertical format and do our own take on so-called microdrama. But at the moment it is not about something that is planned for publication,” Wilson commented.

The success of the athletes seems to have had a great impact on the viewing of the Games. Public service broadcaster NRK reported record engagement for its coverage, reaching 4.1 million people across linear TV and online, equivalent to around 87% of the population aged 10–79. NRK said that the most-watched event was the men’s 50 km mass start in cross-country skiing, which averaged 839,000 viewers, achieved a 94% market share, and peaked at 1,178,000 viewers.

SVT in Sweden figures show that they reached 7.4 million viewers with its coverage, meaning that around seven out of ten Swedes watched the Games on SVT. This represents the broadcaster’s highest Olympic reach since it last held the rights in 2012, despite having live rights to only around half of the events, with TV4 having the remaining half of events. Digital performance was also strong, with close to 4 million people reached online, and nearly 40 million video starts across live streams and clips.

Yle in Finland reported that they reached 4.5 million viewers on linear broadcast, up from 4.1 million for both Beijing 2022 and Paris 2024. Daily TV reach averaged 2.5 million viewers and an average market share of 47.9%, while the ice hockey semi-final between Canada and Finland peaked at 2 million. Digital audiences were also record-breaking, with 898 million minutes viewed on Yle Areena, marking 69% growth from Paris 2024 and 165% growth compared with Beijing 2022.

For Warner Bros. Discovery, which holds the exclusive multimedia rights in 49 European markets, the 2026 Olympic Winter Games concluded successfully. According to the company, streaming viewership on HBO Max reached record levels compared to the previous Winter Games in Beijing 2022 and PyeongChang 2018. Total streaming hours watched increased by 103% compared to Beijing 2022, and HBO Max attracted more than three times the number of viewers as in Beijing. After just three days, the number of subscribers streaming content from Milan Cortina 2026 exceeded the total number watching Beijing 2022.

Expert: Poddarna växer om radion inom fyra år – Dagens Media

Paramounts köp av Warner – så påverkas svenska konsumenter – Dagens Nyheter

Spotify har føjet en million abonnenter til det svenske lydbogsmarked – Mediawatch

Swedish Video Spending Hits Record High as Streaming Drives Market Reshaping – Señal News

Netflix–Warner Bros deal could cement Nordic streaming dominance – Broadband TV News

Spotifys nya drag: ”Tror på något annat” –SvD

Nya poddtrenden: Går över till video – ”Roligare” – Expressen

Traditional TV viewing in Sweden falls to less than a third of overall watch time – C21 Media