American media mogul and billionaire Barry Diller expressed interest in buying CNN and had approached the news network’s parent, Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. (WBD), last year, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal late on Wednesday.
Diller approached about CNN before the HBO parent’s plan to split into two distinct businesses was announced and also before the David Zaslav-led media company put itself up for sale, a source told WSJ.
Sources close to Warner Bros. told WSJ that no serious action was taken on Diller’s inquiry, nor was it taken to the board of directors.
He continues to be interested in CNN and is eyeing the deal in a personal capacity, a person familiar with the matter told the news outlet.
Diller is famous for, among other things, launching the Fox Broadcasting Company back in the 1980s, at a time when ABC, CBS, and NBC were dominating the American broadcast news landscape.
Before that, he helmed Paramount Pictures. Currently he serves as chairman at his media conglomerate IAC Inc. (IAC), which owns popular media brands The Daily Beast, People, and Investopedia.
CNN’s revenue is expected to be $1.8B in 2026, Warner Bros. disclosed in a Securities and Exchange filing earlier this year, and the network would generate an additional $100M each year to touch $2.2B by 2030. Analysts on average value the network at around $4B.
Warner, which has struck a deal to sell only its streaming and studio assets to Netflix Inc. (NFLX) amid a hostile takeover approach by Paramount Skydance Corp. (PSKY), is unwilling to divest CNN partly because of the carriage agreements in place with cable providers and because of a potentially high tax bill, people familiar with the matter told WSJ.
U.S. President Donald Trump previously said that CNN should be part of the transaction regardless of who is buying Warner’s assets. The Journal previously reported that the president has privately said that CNN should be run by people he believes are friendlier toward him and the Republican Party.