Discovery+ subscription prices went up today.

Ad-free plans for new subscribers went from $10 per month to $12/month. Ad-based plans went from $6 to $7.

The new prices take effect for new subscribers immediately. Current subscribers to the streaming service, which primarily features unscripted content, like reality shows and documentaries, will receive 30 days’ notice before the new prices take effect, starting with bills issued as of November 12.

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After months of industry and customer speculation, Paramount Skydance has shed some light on the future of the HBO Max and Paramount+ streaming services.

Paramount Skydance completed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) today, ending a monthslong saga that began when Netflix last year announced its own plans to buy WBD. Netflix scrapped those plans in February. Skydance is the name of the company created from the $111 billion merger.

In an announcement today, Skydance said that all of the direct-to-consumer streaming services it owns, including the Discovery+ service that Discovery Inc. (which merged with WarnerMedia in 2022 to create WBD) launched in 2021, “will unify into a single service over time.”

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Paramount Skydance completed its $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery today, after a last-ditch effort to block the deal was rejected by Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.

The post-merger company is called Skydance, taking the name of a firm that Paramount bought in a separate deal last year. The new Skydance combines two of the largest movie studios, streaming services Paramount+ and HBO Max, CBS, CNN, "and a portfolio of live sports including CBS Sports and TNT Sports, as well as a deep programming library and expansive collection of brands and franchises," Skydance said today in a press release announcing completion of the deal.

The merger was delayed a bit by a lawsuit filed by California and 11 other states. In July, US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín in the Northern District of California ruled that the combination would likely reduce competition substantially and violate antitrust laws.

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There was a call to boycott Disney last fall. The owner of the ABC network had taken Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air over comments Kimmel made about responses to Charlie Kirk's murder, sending free speech proponents into a frenzy.

Those free speech proponents include me, who, as a reporter, has clear stakes in protecting that right. Although I was on board with halting support for a company I felt had acted wrongfully, truly boycotting Disney proved harder than I expected.

Disney's ubiquity

Canceling Disney+ was simple but threw a hefty wrench into my evening routine. I tend to end many weekdays laughing at comforting sitcom reruns and adult animation. I usually associate Disney with princesses, kids' movies, and, more recently, comic heroes. But Disney also owns Hulu, which exclusively streamed many of my favorite shows for unwinding at the time, like American Dad, Futurama, Living Single, Fresh Off the Boat, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. 

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