The proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger now comes with a streaming guarantee and a cable contingency plan. Under a settlement with 12 state attorneys general, Paramount must keep Pluto TV—or another free, ad-supported streaming service—for five years. At the same time, if Paramount is found in material violation of separate carriage negotiation rules, it must sell one or more legacy cable networks from a specified list.
For media buyers, the settlement creates a rare five-year visibility window in a part of the video economy that usually shifts quarter to quarter.
Pluto TV becomes a five-year AVOD commitment
Pluto TV has been central to Paramount’s ad-supported pitch. Chairman and CEO David Ellison told investors on the Q4 2025 earnings call, ‘I am a big believer in the FAST space.’ The company has also folded Pluto into the same backend tech stack as Paramount+ and kept loading it with library content.
That emphasis is notable because Pluto was an early FAST pioneer after its 2014 founding, but later lost ground to Tubi and Roku and saw co-founder Tom Ryan exit. The settlement now prevents a quiet post-merger wind-down and gives AVOD buyers a stable Paramount inventory source for the next five years. Paramount executives said on the Q2 2026 call that they expect Pluto to return to growth in the back half of the year.
What the cable separation rules trigger
The agreement requires Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery basic cable networks to continue negotiating carriage separately. A monitor and a state committee will review complaints. If regulators find a material violation and Paramount does not cure it within six months, the studio must sell one or more of these networks:
- BET, including BET Gospel, BET Her, BET Hip-Hop, BET Jams and BET Soul
- VH1
- Comedy Central
- Smithsonian, Destination America and Science
MTV and Nickelodeon are protected. But BET and Comedy Central were among the legacy brands Skydance leadership said it wanted to revitalize, so their appearance on the list is strategically awkward. The damage is partly contained: Comedy Central’s biggest title, South Park, is already locked into a Paramount+ streaming deal, and BET+ has been folded into Paramount+.
The gaps are as important as the restrictions
The settlement does not stop Paramount from combining Warner Bros. Television, Paramount TV Studios and CBS Studios, which could produce layoffs. It also does not cover premium cable, streaming or broadcast negotiations. That omission could let Paramount bundle Showtime with WBD’s HBO in carriage talks—a pairing that would otherwise face the same competitive concerns as basic cable bundling.
California AG Rob Bonta’s announcement spent most of its time on film production, with only two lines on television: one on an editorial independence board for CBS News and CNN, and one on separate cable package negotiations. That imbalance tells its own story about where the regulators saw the greatest antitrust risk.
What to watch next
Pluto TV can now be treated as durable AVOD inventory for planning windows through the end of the decade. The cable brands carry conditional disposal risk, so linear buyers should keep alternate reach plans for BET, VH1 and Comedy Central if a carriage complaint escalates. The wildcards remain studio consolidation and any premium-channel bundling that the settlement does not restrict.
Source: Deadline
