Media Stocks 2025: Warner Bros. Discovery Shares Soared Over 170% Amid Netflix-Paramount Bidding War

This year, David Ellison managed to do for Warner Bros. Discovery what WBD CEO David Zaslav had struggled to do for more than three years: dramatically boost the market value of the company that combined Discovery and Warner Bros.

Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery, formed in April 2022, zoomed to all-time highs in 2025 — up more than 170% for the year. WBD as of Dec. 30 has a market capitalization of $71.8 billion, up from about $25 billion at the start of the year.

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Warner Bros. Discovery’s Wall Street rally was triggered by Ellison: After his Skydance Media had swallowed up Paramount Global, he aggressively set his sights on buying WBD next — backed with billions from his father, Larry Ellison — and triggered an M&A battle that caused big swings in the stocks of WBD, Paramount Skydance and Netflix.

Netflix shares were up as much as 51% in mid-2025, as the streaming leader continued to show solid growth and analysts continued to be bullish on its future prospects. In October, amid the continuing climb of its share price, Netflix executed a 10-for-1 stock split, to make it more affordable. 22.3% as of Dec. 30.

After Netflix announced an $83 billion deal to buy Warner Bros.’s studios and HBO Max businesses, investors got spooked at the prospect of the deal’s uncertainty and heavy debt load. Still, Netflix shares ended the year up around 22%. Paramount shareholders, meanwhile, were enthusiastic about David Ellison’s play for the company, but PSKY’s stock price has fallen down as WBD repeatedly rebuffed the Paramount bid.

Comcast, which made an unsuccessful bid that proposed combining the WBD streaming and studios business with Comcast’s related businesses, saw its stock price languish, closing down 17% for the year. On Jan. 2, Comcast’s spin-off of Versant (comprising cable networks like CNBC, MS NOW and USA) is set to close. The goal of the Versant transaction is to unshackle the NBC broadcast and Peacock streaming businesses from the declining cable TV networks and convince investors the newly streamlined Comcast is worth more.

The M&A drama surrounding Warner Bros. isn’t over yet. David Ellison has launched a hostile takeover attempt for Warner Bros. Discovery, hoping to convince WBD shareholders that his $30-per-share bid (which the WBD board has rejected) is a better than Netflix’s terms. Last week, Paramount Skydance updated its offer for WBD with certain new provisions; among those, Larry Ellison made an “irrevocable personal guarantee of $40.4 billion” toward Paramount’s all-cash offer for WBD. The WBD board is expected to turn that down, too, with a formal response in the next few days.

Whether the Ellisons will go higher in their quest to capture Warner Bros. Discovery remains to be seen. Note that whoever ends up owning Warner Bros. Discovery, Zaslav stands to cash in from a sale: He’s set to become a billionaire given his WBD stock holdings regardless of whether Netflix completes the deal or Paramount Skydance swoops in to poach the whole company.

Here’s a chart showing the performance of top media stocks: