Paramount's Takeover of WB-Discovery Approved by Shareholders

Since it's not fully Scooby-related, I've been trying to limit the amount of posts on the WB-Paramount merger to only major updates. We had another major happening today, and have also gotten a roadmap as to the next step of the merger.

Today, WB-Discovery shareholders voted on whether to approve the merger with Paramount. This is a crucial step in the merger being able to officially pass. The shareholders overwhelmingly voted to approve the merger, according to Sky News. The deal was valued at 110 billion dollars.

Sky News reported that the last step to make the merger official will happen between July and September 2026. The merger still awaits regulatory approval by the Department of Justice before it can be finalized.

If passed, the WB-Discovery and Paramount merger will the potential to reshape the film industry. Because they are two of the biggest media companies out there, it has the power to significantly reduce jobs and will reduce the number of films and TV shows released. It will also mean that the power of American media will lie in just the hands of a few companies. Because of this, the merger has faced backlash from over 4,000 Hollywood actors, who signed an open letter opposing the merger.

The news also broke yesterday that former WB-Discovery CEO, David Zaslav, has officially left the company. Zaslav left a polarizing four-year legacy, and in terms of Scooby, was specifically responsible for the Mystery Pups series, Scoob! Holiday Haunt, and Haunted High Rise (as well as potentially other projects that were never announced) being written off for taxes. Variety reports he left the company with a $550 million dollar payout from the merger. The article highlights that Zaslav privately expressed to many employees that he would have preferred to stay at the company, but felt pressured into accept the merger.

Thanks to Michael Kenchington, Zoinksdude and Existingperson for sharing the news from various parts of this post!