On December 5, Netflix announced an $82.7 billion merger agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery, the media behemoth that owns everything from CNN and HBO Max to the Harry Potter films and Hanna-Barbera cartoons. The deal would combine the number-one and number-four streaming platforms and give the former DVD deliverers control of a massive library of content.
But Paramount Skydance, the other giant — behind Top Gun, SpongeBob SquarePants, and CBS — wants Warner too. So three days later, the jilted suitors launched a hostile takeover, going straight to Warner’s shareholders with a $108.4 billion offer to buy not just the streaming business but the cable networks like CNN and TNT too.
Coverage of this massive wave of media consolidation is treated like pro wrestling, with dueling CEOs undercutting and outmaneuvering each other. It’s a tag-team fight, The K-Pop Deal Hunters vs. The Nepo Boss Babies, with a crooked ref in the middle holding his palms out ready to be greased.
It’s too early to predict a winner in this heavyweight rumble, but we already know who the losers will be: artists, filmmakers, workers, writers, and the rest of us in the audience.
In this bout, there are no heroes, only heels.
The obvious villain here is David Ellison, scion of Oracle bazillionaire Larry Ellison, whose entire case to shareholders and analysts boils down to “Donald Trump likes us better.” Having already trashed CBS after the Paramount-Skydance merger was approved just a few months ago, Ellison is now pledging to make “sweeping changes” to CNN if he takes over Warner Bros.
At CBS, merger approval meant paying off Trump’s specious lawsuit over editing of an interview with former vice president Kamala Harris, installing a conservative “bias monitor,” and hiring billionaire whisperer and Israel Defense Forces enthusiast Bari Weiss. Among CNN staff, the expectations of an Ellison takeover range from “shit show” to “bloodbath.”
The real prize here for…
Auteur: Craig Aaron
