With the Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery merger having recently cleared another hurdle, the combination of two more major Hollywood studios is that much closer to becoming reality.
In light of this, it’s worth considering what this pair-up would mean for the content landscape, particularly with regard to streaming. It’s no secret that a major motivation behind the deal is to create a combined SVOD service that can truly compete with Netflix’s market dominance. Luminate data suggests that Paramount and WBD joining forces has the potential to do so.
This may not be apparent at first glance. Netflix’s market share in streaming originals was still the leader by a huge margin in 2025, accounting for nearly 63% of U.S. viewing time, according to Luminate Streaming Viewership (M). By contrast, even combined, Paramount+ and WBD’s HBO Max held just a 9% share, only enough to rank third behind Amazon’s Prime Video.
But Paramount+ and HBO Max show more strength in a surprising area, one that’s been all but written off in the streaming age: linear network originals.
When factoring in streaming viewership for 2025 series from flagship channels such as CBS, HBO and HGTV on top of SVOD originals, the hypothetical “ParaMax” platform leaps into a solid second place, capturing 20% of total U.S. hours streamed for such content.
While still just half of Netflix’s market share (which, of course, does not include any linear originals or the library titles Netflix licenses from other studios), this is no mean feat in an SVOD economy that the Big Red N overwhelmingly dominates.
It also highlights a rare competitive advantage legacy media companies including Paramount and WBD hold over Netflix: the ability to generate robust viewing time from economically efficient linear titles, which typically cost far less to produce than streaming hits such as Landman and Stranger Things.
To take this analysis one step further, it’s interesting to note there is an area where a ParaMax would actually outstrip Netflix.
Luminate SV(M) data allows us to calculate viewer retention for TV seasons by dividing their final episode’s estimated views by the first episode’s (views, in this case, being each episode’s total viewing time divided by its runtime).
Among the highest-retention titles for SVOD and linear originals — defined as any season retaining more than 70% of its viewership over six or more episodes — Paramount+ and HBO Max together come out on top, with a 32% share of viewing time for these titles.
Viewer retention is a highly valued but underdiscussed metric in streaming, as shows that hold onto the majority of those who sample the first episode are often held up by SVODs as particularly strong performers. (Those that do not, by contrast, are often at high risk of cancellation.) Paramount’s especially strong performance in this area suggests an advantage that the addition of Warner Bros. Discovery assets could enhance.
The question hanging over all of this, of course, is whether the new Paramount-WBD entity can sustain its combined market share with reduced content output. It’s taken as a virtual given in Hollywood that the merged company will ultimately release fewer films and TV shows than the two separate studios, a major factor behind the fierce opposition to the merger among the industry at large.
There may well be advantages to be had by a hypothetical ParaMax, but it’s equally possible those advantages could prove to be just that — hypothetical.
Luminate Film & TV Content Analytics lead Jimmy Maldonado contributed to this analysis.
