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By Harshita Mary Varghese (Reuters) -Warner Bros Discovery is considering an outright sale following unsolicited interest, the company said Tuesday, in what would be the latest shakeup across legacy media. Shares of the company rose 9.4% in morning trading. Netflix and Comcast are among the interested parties, CNBC reported Tuesday, citing sources, following earlier reports that Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison was also in talks to acquire the combined company. Warner Bros Discovery – home to CNN, HBO Max and the "Harry Potter" franchise – announced plans in June to split its Warner Bros and Discovery Global units by next year to separate its growing streaming business from its slower-growing legacy cable network unit.  A sale or a split would be one of the most consequential reshaping moments in the media industry, potentially prompting other legacy media houses to revisit their own structures. Streaming has fundamentally reshaped the media industry, leaving traditional broadcasters with mounting debt, higher content budgets and fragmented viewership. "This latest development potentially opens up further discussions with interested parties. For Hollywood and other traditional media giants, all roads lead to consolidation," PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore said. The company already rejected an initial bid from Paramount, Bloomberg News reported earlier this month, because the offer of around $20 per share was too low.  Reuters could not immediately verify the CNBC report. The company is also considering an alternative separation structure that would enable a merger of Warner Bros and a spin-off of Discovery Global. Skydance's advances soon after snapping up Paramount speak to the Ellison family's voracious appetite to dominate the global media landscape amid a favorable regulatory regime in the United States.  Analysts believe David Ellison's deep pockets – backed by his father, Oracle co-founder and the world's second-richest person Larry Ellison – give him the firepower to take the risk. The elder Ellison's close ties with U.S. President Donald Trump may also smooth regulatory hurdles and avoid the scrutiny that would usually come with such a merger, analysts say. The decline of legacy media, driven by linear TV cord-cutting, as well as the shift of audiences and advertisers to streaming platforms, has forced traditional media companies to rethink their business structures. (Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo)

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By Indradip Ghosh BENGALURU (Reuters) -The Federal Reserve will lower its key interest rate by 25 basis points next week and again in December, according to a Reuters poll of economists who remain deeply divided on where rates will be by the end of next year.  A month ago, economists had expected just one more cut this year. But the new forecast follows a recent shift in expectations by Fed policymakers toward additional reductions. Caught between the dual risks of already-elevated inflation climbing higher due to tariffs and a further weakening of the labor market, the Fed appears to have prioritized the latter, prompting it to cut rates by 25 basis points last month for the first time since December. All but two economists, 115 of 117, predicted the Fed would lower the interest rate again by a quarter point to 3.75%-4.00% on October 29. Two expected a 25 bps cut in October and a 50 bps cut in December. That majority falls to 71% for another cut in December. The poll was conducted on October 15-21. Financial market traders are more convinced, and have fully priced in two more reductions this year to interest rate futures contracts. Many Federal Open Market Committee members, including Fed Chair Jerome Powell, have suggested they will keep focusing on the job market. However, a government shutdown that so far has lasted three weeks has delayed key official data on employment as well as inflation, blurring the economic outlook. "It would be fair to say approximately half of the current FOMC is more focused on the labor market and the other half on inflation risks," said Ryan Wang, U.S. economist at HSBC. "The difficulty for the Fed is whether this job slowdown mainly reflects bigger labor demand versus labor supply. It's harder to be very precise about which factor is the bigger one, and that does have implications for how monetary policy should react to it." Recent private-sector data indicate both layoffs and hiring are modest, suggesting no major change to the job market. Poll medians predict the unemployment rate will average around the current 4.3% each year through 2027, largely unchanged from last month. Inflation, which the Fed targets at 2% on the personal consumption expenditures measure, was expected to average above 2% each year through 2027, according to the latest poll. Delayed official data due on October 24 are expected to show consumer inflation rose to 3.1% last month from 2.9% in August. Economists were split seven ways on where rates would be by the end of next year, ranging between 2.25%-2.50% and 3.75%-4.00%. The increased uncertainty is partly as a result of speculation on who will be the next Fed chair after Powell's term ends in May. A 76% majority of economists, 25 of 33, who answered a separate question said the bigger risk to Fed rate policy by the end of this cycle was that it would take rates too low.  President Donald Trump has been pressuring Powell to cut rates aggressively for months. "The risk is we have more rate cuts next year," said Brett Ryan, senior U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank. "The risk of the Fed losing its independence is elevated relative to any prior administration." (Other stories from the Reuters global economic poll) (Reporting by Indradip Ghosh; Polling by Jaiganesh Mahesh and Sarupya Ganguly; Editing by Ross Finley and Kim Coghill)

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PARIS (Reuters) -BNP ParibasPA> made no provisions for Sudan-related litigation in its upcoming third-quarter results, Chief Financial Officer Lars Machenil said on Tuesday as the bank sought to dispel concerns it could be exposed to further legal claims. The federal jury in Manhattan, on Friday, ordered the French bank to pay a combined $20.5 million to three Sudanese plaintiffs who testified about human rights abuses perpetrated under former President Omar al-Bashir's rule. The lender's shares tumbled sharply on Monday as investors and traders tried to assess the implications. Its stock was last down 2% on Tuesday, weaker than where it traded before the CFO spoke and weaker than the wider market.. Machenil said BNP had not set aside any funds to pay out such claims. "BNP Paribas did not book a provision in the third quarter 2025," Machenil said in a call with analysts. "We consider the verdict to be erroneous and likely to be overturned." The bank will release its third-quarter results on October 28. Machenil also downplayed the risks of class action, saying it was a "case by case" situation.  "This is neither a regulatory fine nor a criminal penalty, but a private legal dispute. The verdict concerns only three plaintiffs, and it does not set a precedent for similar cases," Machenil said.  He added that the judge had said any individual compensation claims related to the Sudan case would require separate trials, and that Swiss civil law – which applies since the transactions were carried out from Geneva – does not recognise the type of liability alleged. Lawyers for the three plaintiffs, who now reside in the United States, said on Friday the verdict opens the door for more than 20,000 Sudanese refugees in the U.S. to seek billions of dollars in damages from the French bank. (Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain; Additional reporting by Mateusz Rabiega and Jakob Van Calster in Gdansk; Editing by Dominique Vidalon and Tommy Reggiori Wilkes)

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