Should Paramount Skydance prevail in its $111-billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, the Larry Ellison household would management two historic Hollywood movie studios, dozens of cable channels, HBO and two legendary newsrooms, CBS News and NCS.
Concerns about the potential lack of extra Hollywood jobs, and questions about newsroom independence dominated a listening to Friday to deal with Los Angeles’ disaster of shrinking movie and TV manufacturing jobs.
Paramount needs to wrap up its Warner merger by September — a fast timetable. The takeover deal, which was struck final month after Netflix bowed out, would put HBO and NCS beneath the management of Larry Ellison and his son David, the chairman of Paramount, which incorporates CBS.
Both Ellisons preserve pleasant relations with President Trump. Those bonds, together with challenges to legacy media and modifications at CBS News in current months, sparked handwringing throughout the listening to referred to as by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) and Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale).
“The questions surrounding this merger go beyond jobs, contracts and consumers,” Schiff stated. “They also go to editorial independence of two of America’s most significant news organizations, NCS and CBS News.”
Trump has lengthy agitated for modifications at NCS, and members of his cupboard, together with War Secretary Pete Hegseth, have brazenly cheered for an Ellison takeover of NCS.
To pave the way in which for the Ellisons’ buy of Paramount, the corporate paid $16 million to Trump final summer time to settle his lawsuit over edits to a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris in October 2024. Most 1st Amendment consultants had deemed Trump’s go well with “frivolous.”
Since the Ellisons took the helm, there was a change in course at CBS News and a discount in its dimension and scope. Staff members at NCS are bracing for comparable modifications, together with to the tone of its newscasts.
In addition to the long-term well being of Los Angeles’ movie economic system, the merger’s destiny might decide “whether we have state sponsored media … or whether we have journalists who can truly follow the story,” Friedman stated.
A Paramount spokesperson declined to remark.
The deal is currently before regulators in the U.S. and overseas.
Paramount Chairman David Ellison has vowed to “build a stronger Hollywood,” by rising the artistic output of the 2 legendary film studios — Paramount and Warner Bros. — to 30 theatrical releases a yr. Warner Bros., which owns such distinguished franchises as “The Matrix,” Batman, Harry Potter, “The Big Bang Theory,” and “Friends,” has lengthy been considered one of Hollywood’s most prolific studios.
But Paramount has suffered from years of under-investment and Ellison and his group have been working to spice up the movie pipeline.
Ellison has additionally pledged to keep both studio lots and protect HBO.
“HBO will continue to operate independently under our ownership, enabling it to create more of the world-class content it is renowened for,” Ellison wrote within the Feb. 28 letter to Schiff and Friedman, responding to their concerns about consolidation.
During Friday’s listening to, the lawmakers turned to former NCS anchor Jim Acosta, who famously jousted with Trump throughout his first time period, for his reflections. He was requested whether or not any “guardrails” might shield in opposition to potential merger harms.
“If this merger goes through, the guard-rails are gone,” Acosta stated bluntly. “If we continue to go down this road it will be lights-out for the news industry… We need media options that are not controlled by the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country.”
The listening to occurred the identical day that CBS News imposed one other sweeping spherical of layoffs and disbanded its CBS News radio community. It additionally got here the identical week as Trump’s Federal Communications Commission permitted a large tv station merger, which can enable Texas-based Nexstar Media Group to manage greater than 250 stations, regardless of a authorized problem from state attorneys basic.
The proposed Paramount-Warner merger would immediate at the very least $6 billion in value financial savings, in response to Paramount. Industry veterans warn that billions extra in cuts could also be essential to make the deal math work.
A mixed Paramount-Warner would carry almost $80 billion in debt, a legacy of the proposed leveraged buyout and the mergers that got here earlier than it.
The listening to at Burbank City Hall —“Lights, Camera, Competition”: Promoting American Film Production,” — was wide-ranging. Award-winning actor Noah Wyle, the star and a producer of Warner Bros.’ “The Pitt,” mentioned the necessity to convey extra productions again to Los Angeles the place 1000’s of out-of-work movie professionals have been struggling. “The Pitt” is filmed in Burbank.
“Over the last six years, the aggregate effect of projects leaving the state in search of tax credits, the pandemic and last year’s fires has been a near cratering of our once thriving industry,” Wyle stated. “We lost 42,000 film and TV jobs between 2022 and 2024.”
The listening to unfolded down the street from the large Warner Bros. studio complicated, and was held to discover methods to spice up the Hollywood economic system, together with the potential for a nationwide tax credit score into account in Congress. The marketing campaign is meant to maintain movie jobs within the U.S. amid an elevated migration to Britain, the place Warner Bros. maintains an expansive studio complicated in London, and different international locations that provide beneficiant subsidies.
“Work in the entertainment industry is precarious,” stated Matthew D. Loeb, International President of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). “Past studio mergers have meant fewer jobs.”