Entertainment
Warner Bros. Has A New Owner, And It Isn't Netflix
By Jennifer Asencio
| Published
The bidding war over Warner Bros. Discovery is over, and it looks like Paramount has emerged as the victor. Netflix has dropped its bid for the century-old studio and production company, and it is now in the hands of Paramount Skydance. This news has rocked the entertainment industry and sparked speculation about the future of Warner Bros. properties, including HBO, CNN, and the DC Comics cinematic universe, which includes Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman among its famous superheroes.
The sale of the Warner Brothers movie collection has been a hot-button issue for those who watch the entertainment industry. Netflix announced that it dropped its bid to acquire the catalog, leaving Paramount as the winning bid. It cost Paramount Skydance Studios an estimated $111 billion to secure a catalog going back more than a century.
Three Bidders Enter, One Bidder Leaves
Netflix was counting on Warner Bros.’s history of success in the entertainment industry to boost its own catalogue, given its relative newcomer status in movie production and distribution. So was Paramount, which made a bid for the floundering studio and its assets in September 2025. Warner Bros. formally rejected this offer in October, which enabled both Comcast and Netflix to make their own bid.
Eventually, Comcast dropped out, and as far as anyone could tell, only Netflix was a viable player on the field with an offer approaching $82.7 billion. This rankled WBD stockholder Ancora Alternatives LLC, which held out its vote on February 11, 2026, on the grounds that Paramount’s complaints of favoritism toward Netflix were true. This reopened the bidding and allowed Paramount until February 23, 2026, to make a qualifying “superior offer” for Warner Bros.
Netflix had three days to make a counteroffer and announced on February 26, 2026, that it would not do so.
Warner Bros Has Been A Tax Write Off For Years
The entire deal has been covered in controversy. For a few years, Warner Bros. has been writing off properties for tax purposes, including entire movies and television shows. This included digital properties people had purchased for themselves that suddenly disappeared from their libraries with no explanation. These tax write-offs were also an indication of how much trouble the company was in.
Paramount’s move to make its initial bid was seen as an attempt at a hostile takeover. Warner Bros. and Paramount have been competitors for over a century. Combining their libraries puts a significant amount of cinematic and television history under one umbrella. A successful Netflix bid would have given Netflix the lion’s share of the streaming market, as it currently controls over 19% while Paramount and Warner Bros. each control almost 11%. As it stands, Paramount is poised to control more of the market than Netflix and would be second only to Disney+ and its streaming partners, Hulu and Fubo.
Warner Bros. and Paramount also own several news services between them, including CNN and CBS. CBS News has been under fire of its own after the ascension of Bari Weiss as news editor. Social media has been abuzz with viewers who are wary of Weiss potentially controlling CNN because they think she is too friendly to President Trump in her editorial decisions. This is despite Weiss being a centrist who has been critical of Trump in her previous work.
More Content Silos In Our Future?
Another issue is the potential for reducing access to media that is already seeing increased siloing of content. Entertainment companies push out their own apps or merge with other companies to consolidate their smaller catalogs, as the union of Paramount and Warner Bros. is about to do. The Paramount Plus app is notoriously buggy and even failed for some users during the Survivor 50 premiere on Wednesday, February 25. Paramount already excludes much of its content produced before the 1980s, and obtaining a long-standing rival’s library could mean the Warner Bros. and HBO collections get the same treatment.
Paramount’s Destruction Of Beloved Properties
Finally, there is the issue of Paramount practically destroying its own properties. Starfleet Academy has been criticized for poor writing, the destruction of Star Trek lore, and gratuitous inclusion in places where such inclusion makes no sense. Coupled with the trajectory of programs like Survivor, the NCIS and CSI franchises, and endless reboots of Matlock, Hawaii Five-O, and MacGuyver, signs show that the entertainment division is heading in a direction that asks serious questions about what will become of Warner Bros. properties like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Harry Potter series, and the DC Universe, among others. HBO Max runs numerous classic Akira Kurosawa movies, like The Hidden Fortress and Rashomon: what will become of them under Paramount’s supervision?
Now that the deal is finalized, the next step is to examine it for any antitrust issues it raises. This will require scrutiny from numerous governments besides the United States, because every country Paramount wants to do business in has a certain amount of input in the proceedings.
Neither Netflix nor Paramount should have been able to buy Warner Bros. All the players involved, including Comcast, represent significant portions of the American and foreign streaming markets, as well as entertainment and news media. It shrinks the pool of major entertainment companies to a mere four.
Now, if the deal passes muster with anti-trust laws, two of the oldest studios in Hollywood are about to join forces, for better or for worse.
Entertainment
LA public schools pass screen time limits for students in a first
Los Angeles public school students may be returning to the age of college-ruled notebooks and Scantrons, following a Tuesday school board vote that will limit the use of computers, laptops, and tablets in classrooms.
Titled “Using Technology with Intention,” the new resolution mandates the creation of grade-level and subject-specific screen time limits across Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) schools, including a complete ban on device usage for kindergarten and first grade. The use of one-to-one devices, like individual Chromebooks, will be discouraged for second through fifth grades, as well.
Revised guidelines will also address video-aided lesson plans, access to video streaming platforms like YouTube, and expanded restrictions on gaming and social media platforms.
District staff must present the revised tech use policy by June, which will go into effect for all LAUSD students beginning with the 2026-2027 school year. Guidelines will be reevaluated every year, and schools are tasked with tracking and sharing student screen time numbers with parents.
Mashable Light Speed
The resolution cites increasing concern about the effect of screen time on young minds and alleged screen addiction, including recent Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) studies that show a correlation between high screen time and adverse health effects. The board was unanimously in favor of the tech restrictions, with one recusal.
“We know that tech is not going away and can be a powerful tool in the classroom. This is not about going backwards. This is about rethinking school time and screen time in schools to ensure we are doing what actually helps students learn best,” board member Nick Melvoin said during Tuesday’s meeting.
“This is not about going backwards. This is about rethinking school time…”
Advocates, parents, and even students have spent the last year lobbying for greater tech restrictions following the passing of a 2025 bell-to-bell cellphone ban restricting the use of personal devices during school hours. Schools Beyond Screens, a national classroom tech safety coalition founded by LAUSD parents and teachers, helped craft the resolution in collaboration with board members and co-sponsors Melvoin, Karla Griego, Tanya Ortiz Franklin, Jerry Yang, Kelly Gonez, and Rocío Rivas.
“Now is the time for a safe and science-backed approach to classroom technology, one that is not guided by Big Tech talking points like screen value over screen time,” the organization wrote in a press release following the decision.
“There is much work to be done, and this is only the beginning, but today, we are proud, grateful, and – for the first time in a long time – hopeful. Our kids may yet have the kind of public education that they deserve — one that is proven effective and free of undue digital distraction, harmful content, and corporate exploitation.”
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Social Good
Family & Parenting
Entertainment
The Bang & Olufsen Beosound Explore Bluetooth speaker is at the lowest price weve seen all year
SAVE $75: The Bang & Olufsen Beosound Explore Bluetooth speaker is on sale for $224 at Amazon, down from the standard price of $299. That’s a 25% discount.
$224
at Amazon
$299
Save $75
Packing up for an adventure means figuring out how to bring along a soundtrack. A trip to the cabin or a lakeside campground all deserve to be experienced with a great playlist. If you could use an upgrade before summer to get a waterproof Bluetooth speaker, check out this deal at Amazon.
As of April 22, the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Explore Bluetooth speaker is on sale for $224 at Amazon, marked down from the normal price of $299. That’s a 25% discount that takes $75 off the price. It’s also the lowest price we’ve seen at Amazon so far this year.
A compact speaker with a scratch-resistant aluminum shell is exactly what we should be packing on adventures. With an attached carabiner, the B&O Explore speaker is designed to clip onto your backpack when you hit the trail. Or you can utilize the rubber base to set it on a rock or even in the sand. It’s both waterproof and dustproof, adding to the durability.
Bang & Olufsen notes this model gets up to 27 hours of playtime before it needs to recharge. It weighs under 1.5 pounds, so it won’t add much bulk to your gear. It takes about two hours to recharge the Beosound Explore.
Mashable Deals
Before summer kicks into high gear, add the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Explore speaker to your pack. It’s ready for any adventure you have planned.
Entertainment
Get some new wrist candy with the CMF Watch Pro 2 at its lowest price ever
SAVE $39.01: As of April 22, get the CMF By Nothing Watch 2 Pro for $39.99 at Amazon, down from its usual price of $79. That’s a discount of 49% and the lowest price we’ve seen.
$39.99
at Amazon
$79
Save $39.01
There are tons of smartwatches on the market if you’re in need of one. But if you’re willing to look beyond the Apple Watches or Samsung devices out there, you’ll find an awesome alternative from the Nothing brand that’ll save you some serious cash. Not only is it more affordable than the competition, but it’s got everything you could want and then some. In fact, one of the models is on sale right now.
As of April 22, get the CMF By Nothing Watch 2 Pro for $39.99 at Amazon, down from its usual price of $79. That’s $39.01 off and a discount of 49%. It’s also the lowest price we’ve seen.
This affordable smartwatch not only comes in an attractive form factor, but it has just about everything you could ask for. It has your average comms tools like Bluetooth calling and gesture control, a built-in mic and speaker, contacts, message reminders, and music control. But from there, it offers a wide range of sensors and data to help you take control of your health.
It offers a portable blood oxygen saturation monitor, a heart rate monitor, sleep tracking, and so much more. All of this data, including workout information, steps, and much more, can be synced across all your favorite fitness apps, including Apple Health and Google Health Connect. There are 120 sports modes to choose from, GPS positioning, and even a 3D warm-up exercise guide to help get you on your feet each day.
Mashable Deals
With interchangeable watch straps and an attractive face, this extremely reasonable smartwatch is definitely one to rival Apple and Samsung. You’ll want to grab yours while it’s still down to the lowest price we’ve seen.
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