The Merged WarnerMedia and Discovery Are Now ‘Warner Bros. Discovery’
Take note: When WarnerMedia and Discovery officially merge to form a new media giant, the combined company will have a new name: Warner Bros. Discovery.
In presenting the new name to the company, Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav said (via a press release) that it “represents the combination of Warner Bros.' fabled hundred year legacy of creative, authentic storytelling and taking bold risks to bring the most amazing stories to life, with Discovery's global brand that has always stood brightly for integrity, innovation and inspiration.” The official logo that was unveiled today also includes the tagline “The stuff that dreams are made of,” a reference to the 1941 Warner Bros. film The Maltese Falcon. Given what that line refers to, and what that item turns out to be within the film, that is an... interesting choice.
While the Warner Bros. name and logo has remained largely unchanged for almost a century, its parent company has undergone frequent name changes in recent years. Warner Communications merged with Time Inc. to become Time Warner in 1990. Then Time Warner was purchased by AOL at the very apex of the dot-com boom, creating AOL Time Warner. AOL later spun off Time Warner, which was eventually acquired after some legal wrangling by AT&T, who rebranded it as WarnerMedia. Just a few years later, the company will need to update all their letterhead yet again.
The merged Warner Bros. Discovery is expected to be led by David Zaslav as the new CEO. In addition to Warner Bros and Discovery (and their respective streaming services, HBO Max and Discovery+) the combined company will also control Turner Classic Movies, Adult Swim, TLC, TNT, TBS, Food Network, HGTV, CNN, Animal Planet and more.