TheChek News Flow

Another installment will come this week in the fight over Warner Bros. Discovery, which has turned into an extended soap opera. WBD’s board will reportedly (and predictably) once again reject Paramount Skydance’s offer rivaling the deal WBD has already signed with Netflix.

Paramount fixed an issue WBD complained about a few weeks ago: Paramount shareholder (and Oracle bigwig) Larry Ellison personally guaranteed the $40.4 billion equity component in Paramount's $108 billion offer. Unable to complain about that issue, WBD’s board will reportedly stick to the theme of “the offer isn’t high enough.”

That’s inherently subjective. While Paramount is offering $30 a share in cash for all of WBD, Netflix is offering a mix of cash and shares said to be worth $27.75 a share for just the streaming and studio part of WBD. WBD’s cable channels are to be spun off into a separate company ahead of the Netflix deal’s close. Shareholders in WBD will get stock in that company. It’s conceivable, then, that WBD shareholders could be better off with the Netflix deal.

That’s certainly the way WBD’s board is thinking about it, but that requires a leap of faith. WBD shareholders have to assess both the likely value of the Netflix equity they’ll receive as well as the stock they’ll get in the new cable channel spin-off.

Both of those calculations are tricky. Netflix shares have been steadily sliding downward since its interest in WBD surfaced in late October, falling 12% since the Dec. 5 announcement of the deal (including a 3% drop on Friday). The value of the Discovery stock shareholders will get is even harder to be sure of, although the calculation should get a bit easier this week. That’s because shares of Versant—the cable channel firm Comcast’s NBCUniversal is spinning off—start trading on Monday. Investors could use Versant’s valuation as a benchmark.

All that said, Paramount would be in a better position if it just raised its offer a dollar or two a share.

The Takeaway

If OpenAI has its way, nearly one-third of the planet will be using ChatGPT by the start of the next decade. That’s roughly triple its nearly 900 million weekly users, and sounds like an impressive base to build a big advertising and commerce business.

But where ChatGPT attracts new users will arguably be as important as how many it attracts. Already, nearly 90% of ChatGPT’s users are outside the U.S. and Canada, according to estimates by market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. That’s an issue if OpenAI hopes to build a big advertising business.

OpenAI has told investors it could generate $112 billion in revenue from users of the free version of ChatGPT over the next five years, presumably from selling ads and taking a cut of online purchases made from the app. OpenAI spent 2025 hammering out how to put ads in ChatGPT and launching in-chat shopping features.

If those businesses take off, OpenAI has projected they could generate $46 billion in revenue from these nonpaying users in 2030 alone. But ChatGPT’s revenue will also depend heavily on where growth in its user base comes from, judging by the experience of existing digital ad firms.