During an interview with Yahoo Finance at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity on Tuesday , AEW’s Tony Khan showed no concern as Warner Bros. Discovery plan to split off their cable channels into one publicly traded company in 2026. Warner Bros. Pictures, Max (soon to be rebranded again to HBO Max) and other properties of WBD will become a separate entity as well.
“We have great relationships with everybody at the top, both on global networks and streaming and studios. Mr. Zaslav [CEO David Zaslav] himself put our deal together. Gunnar [CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels], who will be running global networks, also was very involved in our deal.”
Warner Bros. Discovery now joins Comcast in splitting television operations from streaming assets.
AEW is its first year of the their new multi-year media rights deal, reportedly worth $185 million annually. Dynamite and Collision began streaming live simultaneously on Max this past January.