A dozen states are suing to thwart a merger that would give Paramount Skydance executives ownership of Warner Bros. Discovery – and effectively give outsize media control to the pro-MAGA Ellison family.
On Friday, a judge heard arguments as the case kicked off, with Variety reporting that the judge “suggested at one point that Paramount had conceded that it will not suffer harm if a temporary restraining order is granted, which would put the merger on hold for up to 28 days.”
Paramount has been central to President Donald Trump’s authoritarian visions of wielding media control. And that’s necessary context for any potential approval of this merger.
Paramount agreed to pay $16 million last year to settle a bogus lawsuit Trump filed over a “60 Minutes” interview involving his 2024 presidential opponent, Kamala Harris. Paramount platforms have been used to promote the president’s cryptocurrency ventures, and Trump has boasted about MAGA-friendly changes instituted at CBS after his administration approved the Paramount-Skydance merger.
In addition, the overtly pro-Trump chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr — who authored a chapter in the far-right playbook Project 2025 — has even depicted Paramount-Skydance’s control of CBS as one of Trump’s “wins” over the media.
Trump even seemed to allude to the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger last weekend, when he snapped at CNN’s Jake Tapper: “We’re trying to have CNN go on a normal path. And we’ll do that.”(CNN is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.)
From the proposed merger’s likely negative impacts on quality and competitiveness in the media to its brazen usefulness to a corrupt administration, there’s plenty not to like about the deal. And the ethics, or lack thereof, surrounding the merger could not be uglier.
On Wednesday, ProPublica reported that that FCC commissioners — who are in the process of reviewing the merger — have accepted pricey gifts from Paramount while the company has had business before the panel — specifically, high-dollar tickets to attend the Kennedy Center Honors gala.
The report cites experts who say the gifts should prompt the FCC officials to recuse themselves from consideration of the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, and that any such recusal could leave the FCC short of quorum ahead of the approval vote. (An FCC spokesperson defended the officials’ behavior as consistent with commissioners under previous administrations.)
As for the accusations of cronyism surrounding the proposed merger, ProPublica’s summation of Paramount’s response just about sums up why some are concerned:
Melissa Zukerman, Paramount’s chief communications officer, said it was a decades-long “CBS practice to invite government officials from both parties” to the Kennedy Center show. She didn’t address why the practice continued after new ownership took over last year, the purpose of the gifts or whether the tickets posed a conflict of interest.
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