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Ellison's Vision: 200M+ Subs, But What's the Real Count?
2 Mar
Summary
- Combined Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount+ could reach over 200 million subscribers.
- A significant overlap exists, with millions subscribing to both HBO Max and Paramount+.
- The actual subscriber revenue may differ due to varying subscription costs and ARPU.
David Ellison anticipates a combined entity of Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount to boast over 200 million direct-to-consumer subscribers upon deal closure in the third quarter of 2026. This projection, however, requires careful examination due to subscriber duplication.
While Paramount+ had 78.9 million subscribers and Warner Bros. Discovery had 131.6 million by the end of 2025, research indicates substantial overlap. Antenna estimates that in January 2026, 7.6 million U.S. subscribers paid for both HBO Max and Paramount+, representing a considerable percentage of each service's user base.
This overlap suggests that the net subscriber count for a consolidated service will be lower than initially stated. Furthermore, the final subscription revenue is not a simple summation, as pricing strategies and average revenue per user (ARPU) for the combined platform are yet to be determined.
