A group of streaming subscribers asked a federal judge on October 16 to force Paramount Skydance Corporation to keep HBO Max and Paramount+ running as separate businesses, arguing that irreversible integration would strip the court of any meaningful remedy if their antitrust challenge succeeds. The preliminary injunction motion, filed in San Francisco federal court, does not seek to unwind the $111 billion merger that closed September 30. It asks instead for a structural hold: separate operations, separate records, and a ban on eliminating either standalone subscription product.
The plaintiffs and the procedural history
The complaint names five individual subscribers, Pamela Faust, Len Marazzo, Lisa McCarthy, Deborah Rubinsohn and Gary Talewsky, represented by the Alioto Law Firm and Foreman and Brasso. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín dismissed an earlier version of the case in April for lack of standing but granted leave to refile. A hearing on the injunction request is set for December 3. The same judge is scheduled to hear a motion to dismiss the broader antitrust suit on Wednesday, and she previously approved the September 21 settlement with a coalition of state attorneys general that cleared a final regulatory hurdle for the deal.
The proposed order goes further than the AG settlement
The nine-point order attached to the motion would require the company to maintain identifiable operational functions for what the filing calls the Legacy Paramount Streaming Business and the Acquired Streaming Business. Defendants would have to preserve records sufficient to reconstruct separate revenues, expenditures, contractual rights, subscribers, content rights and material assets. They would also be barred from compelling subscribers to migrate into a single replacement service. The state AG settlement, by contrast, focused on behavioral commitments and did not impose a structural separation mandate.
Ellison has signaled a combined service is the end game
David Ellison, who runs the combined entity, said at a post-merger press conference two weeks ago that the long-term plan is basically to bring the two services together. He declined to offer a timeline. The plaintiffs cite a recent price increase for the standalone Discovery+ service as evidence that integration is already advancing in ways that could harm competition and consumer choice.
What happens next
If Martínez-Olguín grants the injunction, Skydance would lose the immediate cost synergies that come from merging technology stacks, marketing teams and content libraries. The company has said it is seeking new equity investors to shore up a balance sheet weighed down by debt, and a court-ordered standstill could complicate that pitch. The December 3 hearing will test whether the judge views the subscribers' standing as cured and whether she is willing to constrain a deal she already helped finalize.