It’s TV awards season again and with nominations out for the 78th Emmy Awards, we’ll soon see which networks and streaming services will take home the most honors. While this year’s slate of nominees are are locked in, award-spotters and industry creatives alike have to be wondering how the continued consolidation in the industry could impact the future of Emmy season.
Gold Derby spoke with a few experts and analysts to get their takes on what one particular merger — the one that would unite Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery — could mean.
The backstory
But first, some history. Last year, Hollywood watched with bated breath as Netflix and Paramount Skydance went back and forth in a bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery and its many IP-rich ancillary divisions. By February, Paramount Skydance ended up winning the battle and acquired WBD for a deal valued at $110 billion. Meanwhile, Netflix dropped out of the hunt despite initially reaching an agreement to purchase most of the studio’s assets. At the time, it was reported at the time that Paramount Skydance’s bid was a “superior proposal.”
It should be noted that the merger still faces regulatory hurdles; earlier this week, for example, a dozen states filed a lawsuit attempting to block Paramount Skydance from completing the deal. And on Monday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the deal, putting it on a 14-day pause. But if the merger goes through, it would essentially create one giant streaming service that would presumably combine Paramount+ with HBO Max in order to compete with the scale of other rivals like Netflix, Amazon, and Disney.
Since Paramount already has CBS News and Showtime under its belt, the acquisition would give the company control over WBD’s broadcast and cable TV networks including CNN, TNT, TBS, Discovery, and the Food Network.
Overall, that means a large number of titles under the merged company. According to Reelgood, the deal would create a combined library of around 6,000 titles. Together, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery’s TV divisions produce around 100 series per year, though many of them are sold and licensed externally. Nielsen data analyzed by Forbes shows that the combined company would account for 40% of the most-watched US library programming.
As far as the awards histories of Paramount+ and HBO/HBO Max, it’s really no contest — the latter outlet has been an Emmys staple for decades. When Emmy nominations were announced last month, HBO Max led the pack for the second year in a row with 122 nominations, comfortably ahead of Netflix at 111.
Paramount’s struggling streamer, meanwhile, scored only a single nomination: a stunt coordination nod for Tulsa King. Despite a concentrated effort to push hit Taylor Sheridan shows like The Madison with Michelle Pfeiffer or Landman with Billy Bob Thornton into the Emmy race, Paramount+ continues to see resistance from voters when it comes to recognizing those series.
What the merger means for the Emmy race
Brandon Katz, director of insights and content strategy at Greenlight Analytics, tells Gold Derby that any overlap created by the Paramount/WBD merger may matter more than the raw size when it comes to the Emmy Awards. According to data from the entertainment data and intelligence firm, HBO Max’s U.S. adult streaming audience already shares a significant overlap with competitors: YouTube (92%), Amazon (76%), Apple (29%), Disney+ (46%), Hulu (43%), Netflix (66%), Paramount+ (39%), Peacock (21%).
“Multistreaming households have been commonplace for years at this point, so I don’t believe a combined Paramount+ and HBO Max creates a newly exclusive sector of voters,” Katz observes, adding that the consolidation can change the competitive dynamics in other ways.
“A reduction in competition provides a Paramount-WBD conglomerate with a greater share of eligible contenders,” he notes. “Fewer competitors will result in smaller distinct marketing budgets, which likely means fewer competing FYC campaigns for the same overlapping attention spans. That could potentially winnow the competition even if the audience remains the same.”
Katz added that one emerging wildcard is whether Apple TV — which is coming off a record-breaking 89 Emmy nominations — will remain a Hollywood player under new CEO leadership.
“If the streamer is ever deemed superfluous, and the futures of spun-off Versant and NBCUniversal’s remain uncertain, and Paramount-WBD eats up greater market share with fewer major rivals, the variety of Emmys contenders and winners could decline for reasons completely unrelated to quality,” Katz says.
Mike Proulx, vice president and research director at Forrester, also agrees that a combined catalog of the merged company could work in Paramount Skydance’s favor since it would gain Warner Bros. Discovery’s strongest Emmy contenders via HBO Max — think awards favorites like The Pitt, Hacks, and DTF St. Louis, which were the network’s big success stories in the Drama, Comedy, and Limited Series categories, respectively.
However, Proulx points out that because Paramount has been framing the merger around scale and cost efficiencies, it could risk maintaining the volume and quality of programming that made HBO a prestige content brand in the first place. “Streaming consumers are concerned about preserving HBO’s creative quality,” Proulx notes. Indeed, Forrester’s May 2026 Consumer Pulse Survey found that 35% of US online adults said they worry a combined HBO Max-Paramount+ service would lead to higher prices. Among subscribers, 22% said fewer or weaker HBO originals would cause them to cancel.
Proulx observes that the irony of the deal is that it could make Paramount a more powerful player in the Emmy ecosystem while shrinking the pool of future contenders if consolidation continues to reduce creative investment. “CBS will also benefit when the Emmy telecast returns to its network rotation since a combined Paramount-WBD would control a larger collection of nominated series, talent, and distribution assets that can be used to promote the awards show,” he says.
Michael Goodman, the director of entertainment research at Parks Associates, observes that Paramount has a clear choice if and when it assumes control over HBO: continue to focus on the prestige, quality programming that the network is known for or force them to cater towards mass-appealing shows like Landman.
“It could go the other way as well, so we shouldn’t just throw that out and say that Paramount can’t raise the quality of its programming simultaneously,” Goodman says, adding that Paramount’s apparent focus on cost efficiencies in the face of financial pressures leads him to think that the company won’t make a significant increase in their budget for original programming.
“My guess is, right now HBO and Paramount+ are going to be pretty much treated as weak equals, but do they morph?” Goodman muses. “There’s a lot of levers that can still be played — and that will play out in the awards space as well.”
