Warner Bros. Discovery Second Round Bids Due Dec. 1

Warner Bros. Discovery has asked bidders to submit a sweetened second round of offers by Monday, Dec. 1, Deadline has confirmed.

The media giant led by CEO David Zaslav has been sitting on the first round of non-binding bids since Nov. 20. As reported, Paramount-Skydance is offering to buy the entire company, while Netflix and Comcast are looking to acquire the Warner Bros. film and TV studios and HBO Max.

WBD has indicated that it believes the sale process can be concluded by late December, although the transaction may require at least a year to be cleared by regulators.

Warner launched a formal auction process earlier this year after receiving three bids from Paramount, which itself was just acquired by David Ellison’s Skydance in August. His father, billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, is backing the bid.

Comcast is in the process of spinning out the NBCUniversal cable networks into a separate company called Versant in a transactions that should be completed early next year. The WBD assets would reside with the parent company. WBD was also pursuing a formal separation of its linear television business from studios and streaming and still has that option if it doesn’t clinch a sale.

Bloomberg first reported the new deadline.

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