Paramount Skydance is cleared to move forward with its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, the US Department of Justice announced Friday. The deal marks a tectonic shift in the American media landscape, further dwindling the number of major players in the industry and drastically expanding the influence of the Ellison family.
In its press release announcing the approval, the DoJ shot down arguments against the merger. It denied that the acquisition of Fox by Disney some years ago could be used as a case study, citing the COVID-19 pandemic as an interfering factor which renders the comparison moot. It also dismissed labor concerns which have been widely voiced by industry workers. On June 9, it was reported that The United Kingdom is conducting its own investigation of the deal, a factor which may have advanced the DoJ’s timeline.
With the acquisition of Warner and its associated brands, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison will run the historic Warner Bros. Studios, as well as HBO and its streaming counterpart HBO Max. CNN Worldwide, a major broadcast rightsholder for The Olympics and the NHL, among others, is also included in the deal, as is Warner Bros. Games. The company already owned Paramount and its TV subsidiaries including CBS, MTV, BET, and Nickelodeon. David Ellison’s father, the billionaire Larry Ellison, is reported to be providing $45.7 billion worth of equity to float the deal. The elder Ellison owns Oracle, a major provider of server infrastructure. Oracle recently joined a consortium of investors for a 45% stake in the American operations of the popular short-form video platform TikTok. Together, the father-son duo now control a media portfolio to rival Disney’s. (Megan Ellison, the senior Ellison’s daughter, has her own media venture which is independent of the father-son duo’s portfolio.)
The DoJ approval for the deal comes on the heels of multiple scandals at CBS News, which have sparked fear regarding the future of CNN. Larry Ellison is a personal friend of president Donald Trump, who has suggested that CNN’s current leadership is “corrupt and incompetent.” Under the Ellisons’ control of Paramount, Bari Weiss was installed as the head of CBS News, and she wasted no time gutting the legacy news organization. Now, the fear is that a similar fate could befall CNN.
Most recently, Weiss fired 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley, a decision which led Pelley and remaining 60 Minutes staffers to speak out, with Pelley claiming the venerated news show is being “murdered” by Weiss. A 60 Minutes report on conditions in ICE facilities was scuttled in December, and correspondent Cecelia Vega was fired in May while working on a report about Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories who was sanctioned by the US. Vega’s journalistic work was withheld from her during the firing, raising concerns that her sources might be exposed by CBS.
Under Ellisons’ control, CBS also moved to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, a decision Paramount Skydance claimed was purely motivated by financial realities but which came on the heels of a Colbert segment which pointedly criticized a $16 million settlement paid to president Trump by CBS.
In May, over 5,500 movie and television industry professionals signed an open letter warning that the acquisition of Warner by Paramount would “threaten the sustainability of the entire creative community.” Signees include Glenn Close, Jane Fonda, Joaquin Phoenix, Kevin Bacon and many other household Hollywood names.
While DoJ approval was the biggest hurdle for the landmark deal, state attorneys general in California and New York have indicated their intent to bring challenges against it, in addition to an investigation by European Officials and the aforementioned investigation by the UK. Paramount Skydance has until September 30 to officially close the deal before it will become subject to a daily ticking fee of $7 million for Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders.
