Shareholders Approve Merger Between WarnerMedia And Discovery

AEW will now officially be under the umbrella of both WarnerMedia and Discovery following a merger between the two entertainment conglomerates.

Discovery announced today that their shareholders had approved of the merger between the companies, officially creating Warner Bros. Discovery, described as, "a premiere world entertainment company," according to Deadline.

The deal between WarnerMedia and Discovery had been in talks for some time, with the Discovery shareholders voting being one of the last steps in closing the deal, which is expected to be finalized in the second quarter of 2022. Warner Bros. Discovery will be led by Discovery CEO Davis Zaslav.

The agreement brings together assets from both WarnerMedia and Discovery, including AEW, which airs on WarnerMedia platforms TBS (AEW Dynamite) and TNT (AEW Rampage). There is likely to be no immediate effect on AEW from the merger, as the promotion's TV deal for both Dynamite and Rampage runs through the end of 2024.

It should be noted that both WarnerMedia and Discovery have their own streaming services, HBOMax and Discovery+. It is unclear at this time if the two entities will remain separate or be merged together as well. Prior to Tony Khan's announcement that he had purchased Ring of Honor, many had speculated that AEW had reached a deal to be streamed on HBOMax.

Khan has since made clear his purchase Ring of Honor was partially in the hope of combining the AEW and ROH video libraries into a package for a potential streaming service.