Warner Bros. Discovery David Zaslav anticipates a friendlier environment for doing deals under the incoming Trump administrationopening the door to industry consolidation, he said Thursday.

“This would provide a real positive and accelerated impact on this industry that is needed,” Zaslav told investors on a conference call after the company released quarterly earnings. He was referring to the election of Donald Trump as president on Wednesday. The Republican defeated Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

Strict antitrust policies under the Biden administration have hurt deal-making between industries in the past few years, limiting options for media companies.

Zaslav told investors that the entertainment and broadcasting industry is poised for consolidation, which would improve consumers’ streaming experience as various services are combined into more coherent offerings.

Shares of parent CNN rose 11 percent in midday trading. The stock has lost about a quarter of its value so far this year.

“Overall, Trump is in favor of deregulation,” said eMarketer television and streaming analyst Ross Benes. “This will increase the chances of more mergers and acquisitions. But most media M&A deals in recent history have had bad outcomes for employees and investors.”

Warner Bros Discovery and its peers are navigating what Zaslav described as “generational disruption,” facing an erosion of its lucrative television business as millions of consumers migrate to streaming video services.

A new regulatory filing reveals that Zaslav engaged in merger talks with Paramount Global last December, though a deal never materialized. The company also explored a plans to break up its streaming and studio businesses from its television networks.

In August, Warner Bros. Discovery reduced the value of its television assets by $9 billion. Paramount Global followed suit, taking a $5.98 billion charge for its television networks in the same month. As recently as last month, Comcast said it was weighing severing their cable networks into a separate company, a strategy Walt Disney evaluated and rejected earlier this year.

The Olympics boost streaming

Earlier on Thursday, Warner Bros Discovery reported a surprise quarterly profit on Thursday as cost controls and a record jump driven by the Olympics. streaming subscribers helped make up for the lack of major box office hits from his studio.

The company’s Max streaming platform expanded into Europe weeks before the Paris Olympics with exclusive rights to stream the showcase sporting event, boosting subscribers.

Max also benefited from the platform’s combination with Disney+ and Hulu, as well as a strong first season of “The Penguin” — a crime drama series that launched in September and is based on a popular DC Comics villain.

The streaming business of Warner Bros. Discovery, which hosts the Max and Discovery+ services, added 7.2 million direct-to-consumer subscribers in the third quarter, beating estimates for 6.28 million additions, according to data compiled by Visible Alpha.

Max posted its strongest quarterly subscriber gain since the platform’s launch, Zaslav said, calling it a “significant moment” that capped two years of building the service and reversed millions of dollars in losses.

The streaming unit’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization more than doubled from a year earlier to $289 million, helped by lower content spending.

WBD also made progress in its efforts to control costs, with expenses falling 5.5 percent in the quarter ended Sept. 30. That helped it report a surprise profit of 5 cents per share. Analysts were expecting a loss of 9 cents, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Revenue at the TV networks division, which includes Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and Food Network, rose 3 percent to $5.01 billion as it sub-licensed Olympic sports rights to regional broadcast networks across Europe.

WBD’s studio segment revenue fell 17%, dragging total revenue of $9.62 billion below estimates of $9.80 billion.

With releases like “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” in the July-September quarter, WBD’s studio division struggled to repeat last year’s success of “Barbie,” the top-grossing film of 2023.