What happened
Paramount Skydance on Monday settled an antitrust lawsuit with 12 states challenging its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, clearing the merger’s last major obstacle. The states, led by California, had argued that combining the two major Hollywood studios plus streaming giant HBO Max and a host of cable channels would harm competition, cut film production and raise consumer prices. There were also concerns about combining Warner Bros. owned CNN with Paramount’s CBS News division under Paramount CEO David Ellison, an ally of President Donald Trump.
Who said what
The settlement is “not a vote of support for this merger,” but it “resolves our antitrust concerns” by “guaranteeing massive investment” of $1.5 billion in “domestic film production and providing enforceable guardrails to help keep cable prices competitive,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said in a statement. The five-year deal also includes $47.5 million for workers affected by the merger and a “News Editorial Independence Board” to “insulate” CBS News and CNN from “corporate intervention in newsroom decisions, a demand from several of the attorneys general,” said NPR. But many panned the plan for a Paramount-led oversight board, which “sounds like utter garbage,” one CBS News staffer told The Guardian.
What next?
A federal judge must approve the agreement, The Wall Street Journal said, but Paramount “expects to close the deal in about two weeks.”
Paramount’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. now appears to be on the way
