ALL INPredictions
Last updated Nov 29, 2025
Episodes / Charlie Kirk Murder, Assassination Culture in America, Jimmy Kimmel Suspended, Ellison Media Empire
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Friedberg @ 00:53:12Inconclusive
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Within the next several years, there will either be (a) a corporate merger between the Ellison-controlled legacy media assets (Paramount/Skydance and a potential Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition) and TikTok US, or (b) a deep commercial integration in which TikTok offers premium, studio‑produced content (e.g., HBO and Discovery shows) directly in the TikTok app on a paid basis (e.g., subscription or per‑episode payments).
And so a lot of big time creators, by the way, the audience at YouTube is over ten x bigger than it is on Netflix. So Netflix is only paying to retain subscribers now... So if you take the incredibly rich content and production capabilities of HBO and all the Warner Brothers Discovery Media properties and production houses underneath this combined company. And you combine that with the direct to consumer distribution of TikTok. There may in the future be a merger between this media company and TikTok, or a deep commercial relationship where imagine going on TikTok and you can now get premium content for ten bucks a month or two bucks an episode, and watch all of your HBO shows in the TikTok app, or watch all of the discovery shows or all of the other content that's available.View on YouTube
Explanation

As of November 30, 2025, neither of the specific outcomes Friedberg described has occurred, but the time window (“within the next several years”) has not expired.

What the prediction requires

  1. (a) A corporate merger between Ellison‑controlled legacy media assets and TikTok US. In practice this would mean Paramount/Skydance (and possibly a future Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition) combining corporate structures with TikTok’s U.S. entity.
  2. (b) Or a deep commercial integration where TikTok itself sells premium studio content (e.g., HBO/Discovery shows) inside the TikTok app on a paid basis (subscription or per‑episode).

What has actually happened so far

  • David Ellison completed the merger of Skydance Media with Paramount Global in August 2025, forming Paramount Skydance, which he controls as chairman and CEO.(reuters.com) This matches the “Ellison‑controlled legacy media” setup assumed in the prediction.
  • A Trump‑brokered restructuring of TikTok’s U.S. operations would give an Oracle‑led U.S. investor group major control, including licensing TikTok’s recommendation algorithm and overseeing security. Public reporting indicates Larry Ellison/Oracle and allied media tycoons (including the Murdochs) as key stakeholders, with David Ellison frequently mentioned in connection with the prospective board.(theguardian.com) This creates common ownership and influence, but it is not a corporate merger of Paramount Skydance (or WBD) with TikTok US.
  • Paramount Skydance is actively pursuing a takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery (the owner of HBO and Discovery), but as of late November 2025 WBD has rejected multiple bids and no deal has closed.(en.wikipedia.org) So the “Ellison‑controlled Warner Bros. Discovery” part of the scenario is still hypothetical.
  • TikTok has launched and expanded its Series product, which lets individual creators sell premium, paywalled long‑form videos (up to 20 minutes) directly in the app.(newsroom.tiktok.com) However, there is no public evidence that Warner Bros. Discovery (HBO/Discovery) or Paramount Skydance are using Series or any other TikTok product to sell full HBO or Discovery shows as an in‑app subscription or per‑episode offering. Existing WBD–TikTok activity is promotional/social (e.g., memes, hashtag challenges, marketing clips), not full catalogue distribution.(businessinsider.com)

Why the verdict is ‘inconclusive’

  • Outcome (a) has not happened: there is no announced corporate merger between TikTok US and Paramount Skydance or (yet) WBD—only overlapping ownership/influence via the Ellison/Oracle group.
  • Outcome (b) has not happened: TikTok does offer paywalled premium content via Series, but not as a distribution channel for HBO/Discovery shows in the way Friedberg described.
  • Because the prediction explicitly allows for this to occur “within the next several years” and we are only about two months past the podcast date (September 19, 2025), the forecast cannot yet be definitively judged right or wrong.

So, as of late 2025: the structural pieces Friedberg anticipated (Ellisons deeply involved in both a major legacy media conglomerate and TikTok US) are partially in place, but neither the specific merger nor the TikTok‑hosted HBO/Discovery premium offering he described has materialized yet. Hence the status is inconclusive (too early to tell).