HBO Max-Paramount+ Bundle Set To Launch In Early 2027, David Ellison Confirms

An HBO Max–Paramount+ bundle will launch in early 2027, Skydance CEO David Ellison confirmed in a letter to shareholders on Monday. The bundle has been promoted but not its exact timing, which was revealed along with a range of results from the third quarter. The $110 billion merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery into Skydance closed in early October, meaning the report of July-to-September results is a somewhat blurry snapshot. Still, in one of the few pro forma metrics the company offered, reflecting what the outcome would have been had WBD and Paramount merged on Jan. 1, 2025, Skydance said pro forma revenue grew 15% year-over-year in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, the letter said, “we expect continued strong DTC revenue growth.” And by 2030, the company expected to have shifted “a meaningful majority of revenue and profit from TV to our streaming and studios businesses” as a counter to the secular declines in linear viewing and advertising. Watch on Deadline Ellison has said multiple times publicly that the ultimate aim is to blend HBO Max and Paramount+ into a single service, though that feat is complicated both in terms of the technology lift and the strategic details. “Long-term, the plan is basically to bring them together,” Ellison said at a press event held to mark the closing of the merger. “It’ll take a period of time to do that. So, I think in the immediate [term], you will see them operated separately, with things like bundling or things that you’ll be able to see accelerated in the relatively short term. I can’t be specific about that yet today.” WBD had been fairly aggressive in participating in bundles with HBO Max, particularly as it looked to give its ad-supported tier a push. The company’s third-party package with Disney+ and Hulu was an early example of rivals teaming on a bundle.