Which major US media mergers have closed since 2020 and who owns the resulting companies?
Executive summary
Major U.S. media transactions since 2020 that are repeatedly cited in the reporting include: AT&T’s 2018–2022 divestiture and spinoff of WarnerMedia into a merged company with Discovery (closing April 8, 2022) that created Warner Bros. Discovery (reported in Dealroom and other summaries) [1] [2]. Viacom and CBS legally re‑combined into ViacomCBS (now Paramount Global) after a merger process that closed in 2019–2020 and is frequently referenced as part of the recent consolidation wave [3] [4]. Other headline moves — Disney’s acquisition of most of 21st Century Fox assets (completed earlier but discussed as a recent precedent), AT&T’s purchase and later spin‑off of Time Warner/WarnerMedia, Comcast’s acquisition of Sky, and Verizon’s sale of Yahoo/AOL to Apollo — are discussed in contemporary trade coverage as major shifts reshaping ownership [5] [4] [6]. Available sources do not provide a single definitive list of “every” major U.S. media merger closed since 2020; instead they sample a set of high‑profile deals and corporate restructurings widely reported by industry press [3] [4] [1].
1. Big deals that anchored the post‑2020 narrative
Journalists and industry analysts treat WarnerMedia’s combination with Discovery (announced after AT&T’s earlier 2018 purchase of Time Warner) as the key post‑2020 landmark: AT&T spun out WarnerMedia and the assets merged with Discovery to form Warner Bros. Discovery, a company that closed the transaction in April 2022 according to Dealroom and related coverage [1] [2]. Coverage presents this as part of a broader industry recalibration where legacy operators consolidate content libraries and streaming scale [1] [2].
2. Viacom and CBS: reunion and rebranding
The re‑merger of Viacom and CBS — often cited in industry retrospectives as a near‑term example of consolidation — is discussed as having closed around 2019–2020 and later rebranded as Paramount/Paramount Global; commentators place it in the same wave of consolidation that includes the Discovery/Warner combination and Disney’s Fox purchase [3] [4]. Trade pieces use the Viacom–CBS case to argue consolidation is a strategic response to streaming competition [3].
3. How reporters group precedent deals with 2020–present activity
Outlets and think‑pieces routinely link earlier megadeals—Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox, AT&T’s Time Warner purchase, Comcast’s Sky takeover, and Amazon’s MGM buy—to explain the market forces pushing more deals after 2020 [5] [1] [7]. Analysts argue these prior transactions set both the content scale and regulatory flashpoints that shaped the 2020s M&A environment [7] [1].
4. Carve‑outs, private equity and “closed” vs. “closed+spun” deals
Coverage emphasizes that the industry finished some purchases only to later re‑structure — AT&T’s buy of Time Warner was followed by a spin‑off and merge with Discovery, and Verizon sold Yahoo/AOL to Apollo in a reported $5 billion transaction [6] [1]. Trade reporting treats such sequences as single closed deals plus later corporate housekeeping, not as continuous ownership by the initial buyer [6] [1].
5. What counts as “major” and what the sources omit
The sources supplied do not publish one canonical, exhaustive list of every major U.S. media merger that closed since 2020; they selectively highlight landmark transactions and structural examples [3] [4] [1]. Available sources do not mention a full roster of smaller TV station sales, many regional consolidations, or the dozens of digital content platform acquisitions that also closed in that period — those transactions are not listed in the provided reporting (not found in current reporting).
6. Competing perspectives and regulatory context
Trade and advocacy sources frame the wave differently: industry outlets frame deals as necessary scale plays to take on Netflix and big tech and to monetize direct‑to‑consumer platforms [3] [7], while labor and guild reports warn consolidation harms competition, labor and content availability (WGA report) and urge tougher antitrust scrutiny [8]. Both perspectives appear in the supplied reporting and explain why many deals faced regulatory attention [8] [7].
7. Bottom line for ownership today
Taken together, the reporting shows that a small number of very large corporations now control large content libraries and distribution channels — Warner Bros. Discovery being the product of the WarnerMedia+Discovery transaction, Paramount/ViacomCBS representing the reunited Viacom and CBS assets, and other legacy giants (Disney, Comcast) still dominating via earlier transactions — but the sources emphasize continued reshaping through spin‑offs, PE deals, and carve‑outs rather than a static ownership map [1] [4] [6].
Limitations: this analysis uses only the provided sources and therefore cannot verify every closed deal since 2020 or provide up‑to‑the‑minute ownership lists for every asset; for transactions or local station sales not cited above, available sources do not mention them (not found in current reporting).