Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s corporate parent, announced Thursday, it is establishing a new corporate structure that splits its cable networks off from its growing streaming business.
The restructuring is not a spinoff of cable assets, as Comcast recently announced, but it may ultimately have the same effect.
Warner said Thursday it will merge the unit that currently houses its Max and Discovery+ streaming services as well as HBO with another division that includes its Warner Bros. movie and TV production operations.
That streaming and studios unit would sit alongside the legacy cable unit, which includes networks such as TNT, CNN, TBS, Food Network and HGTV.
The company said the changes will take effect by mid-2025. Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) rose 7% in premarket trading after the restructuring was announced.
The new structure will give Warner Bros. Discovery more “flexibility with potential future strategic opportunities across an evolving media landscape,” CEO David Zaslav said in a press release.
Wall Street analysts have been anticipating merger and acquisition activity across the cable television industry contracts in the streaming era, particularly as President-elect Donald Trump takes office with a deregulation agenda.
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