Will Warner Bros. kill Skydance — or will David Ellison kill Warner Bros?

Today, I’m talking with Peter Kafka, chief correspondent at Business Insider and host of the Channels podcast, about the gigantic Warner Bros.-Paramount merger and the future of the company now simply called Skydance.

Skydance is owned by David Ellison, son of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, and its deal to acquire Warner Bros.

Discovery officially closed the day Peter and I spoke.

There are some grand ambitions here, but the reality is that acquiring Warner never goes well for anyone.

AOL failed, AT&T failed, and Discovery failed — although it did succeed in flipping these assets to Skydance.

So I wanted to ask Peter if he thinks the Ellisons and Skydance have a real shot at succeeding where so many companies before them have hit the rocks.

Okay: Peter Kafka on Warner Bros. and Skydance.

Here we go.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Peter Kafka, you’re the chief correspondent at Business Insider, and you’re the host of the Channels podcast, our sister podcast here on the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Welcome back to Decoder .

Thanks for having me.

It’s big media day again! A big media day.

It’s an auspicious day, as my parents would say.