Warner Bros. Discovery announces spinoff plans

Warner Bros. Discovery, following the lead of Comcast’s NBCUniversal, will divide itself into two separate companies.

Comcast cable spinoff referred to as SpinCo officially named: Versant

“By operating as two distinct and optimized companies in the future, we are empowering these iconic brands with the sharper focus and strategic flexibility they need to compete most effectively in today’s evolving media landscape,” said CEO David Zaslav in a statement.

The announcement, which was made public the morning of June 9, 2025, follows months of speculation after the company reorganized into two divisions that appeared very similar to Comcast’s spinoff of Versant.

The split will come along those same lines — streaming and studios as one company and global linear networks as the other.

WBD’s streaming and studios company will encompass Warner Bros. Television, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, DC Studios, HBO and HBO Max (including its international sports offering), Warner Bros. Games, Tours, Retail and Experiences, as well as studio production facilities in Burbank, California, and Leavesden, U.K. 

The linear network side will include CNN Worldwide and the TNT Sports and Bleacher Report brands as well as the cable networks Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Oprah Winfrey Network, Investigation Discovery, Food Network and Cooking Channel, HGTV, TBS, TNT, TruTV, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network and Boomerang, as well as international versions of these brands. CNN’s forthcoming streaming venture and Discovery+ will be included in this portion of the new company as well. 

Warner Bros. Discovery is planning to separate the businesses in a tax-free manner for U.S. federal income tax purposes, according to the announcement.

The companies plan to implement “arm’s length transition services and commercial agreements” after the separation to facilitate the transition and maintain continued operational efficiencies, according to the announcement.

Advertisement

More details of the exact structure of the deal were not immediately available, though WBD did indicate it hopes to close the deal in mid-2026 and that both units will be publicly traded. 

There was also no word on how the two companies might be branded, including whether the Warner Bros. Discovery name might survive. Comcast, for its part, took about half a year to come up with the name for its spinoff, Versant, between the move was announced in November 2024 and the selection of the name in May 2025. During this period, the new division was informally referred to as “SpinCo.” 

Details about where the two companies might be headquartered were not included in the initial announcement. There was also no immediate word if there would be any shifts in employee headcount or if any shared operations might need to be rebuilt as two separate ones, such as MSNBC’s creation of its own newsroom as part of the Versant deal.

Although not specifically addressed, WBD’s motives in creating two companies appear similar to Comcast’s — by moving most cable networks to a separate company, the companies likely hope to maximize shareholder value by avoiding having their shrinking linear businesses drag down results from streaming and film studios.

Digging deeper, there also could be tax reasons for separating the companies while still maintaining some interchange between them.

In many ways, this echoes the early-to-mid-2010s trend of media conglomerates such as News Corp. and Gannett creating separate companies for their television and digital properties, which were considered more lucrative at the time, from newspaper and publishing arms.

In addition to the spin-off, WBD also announced plans to enhance work with J.P. Morgan to secure a bridge facility of $17.5 billion to help with its debt.