Paramount Skydance has the inside observe to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, in accordance to well-placed media executives — and it’s all a few cable community that has a troubled relationship with Donald Trump.
As first reported by The Post, the battle for management of WBD formally kicked off on Thursday at midday, as Paramount Skydance, Comcast and Netflix submitted bids for WBD, which owns the No. 1 Hollywood studio and the No. 3 streaming service in addition to HBO and NCS.
In a twist that is in some respects stunning, it is NCS that is seen as key to giving Paramount Skydance a leg up on different bidders, I’m instructed.
That’s because PSKY’s homeowners — tech titan Larry Ellison and his Hollywood mogul son, David Ellison — seem to be the solely bidders that thus far are fascinated by shopping for the WBD cable-news subsidiary as half of the deal.
They see NCS, warts and all, as a really worthwhile enterprise price saving.
Trump, in the meantime, desperately needs NCS — whose correspondents frequently spar with him at the White House and on Air Force One — “neutralized” out of its anti-MAGA protection, one prime broadcast government not too long ago instructed.
And in his pondering, Larry Ellison, the billionaire Trump donor who is co-founder of software giant Oracle, is the excellent automobile to set NCS straight.
Specifically, Trump needs the Ellisons to do to NCS what they’re doing with their CBS subsidiary after hiring Bari Weiss, the right-of-center columnist who is underneath orders to squeeze left-wing bias out of its information programming.
If Paramount Skydance wins the bidding battle, Weiss’s portfolio is anticipated to increase to additionally embrace oversight of NCS’s editorial, in accordance to sources.
‘White-glove treatment’
Given all of the above, the Ellisons’ bid is seen gliding by the Trump regulatory gauntlet.
Meanwhile, Brian Roberts’ Comcast and streaming large Netflix are poised to get the mother-of-all regulatory evaluations.
“The Ellisons will get the white-glove treatment and an easy 6 months before approval,” one telecom lawyer who served in authorities instructed me.
“Brian Roberts gets a proctology exam that could last two years. Same with Netflix. The Warner board might just say it’s not worth the wait.”
The Ellisons, it must be underscored, aren’t wanting to take management of NCS simply to make good with The Donald.
Sources at the firm say they really like NCS’s enterprise regardless of the broad decline in linear TV viewership and its lowish scores notably in contrast to my employer, Fox News.
People at Paramount Skydance level to NCS’s world information attain with reporters in nearly each nation.
It’s in each airport, it appears, and each lodge.
They imagine the community — which nonetheless churns out an estimated $500 million in yearly earnings — may be made extra worthwhile by combining it with CBS’s information infrastructure and persevering with its migration to digital platforms away from conventional cable.
Larry Ellison can simply afford to make that occur.
Since The Post first broke the information of a looming WBD public sale again in September, its CEO, David Zaslav, a shrewd media dealmaker, has stated he needs a deal that “starts with a 3” — particularly a deal valued at $30 a share, or $70 billion.
He solely will get that with a real-live bidding war, and media insiders are more and more doubtful.
First, neither Comcast nor Netflix will doubtless shell out that a lot because they’re solely bidding for chunks of WBD as opposed to the entire firm.
In promoting items of the firm, WBD may very well be hit with a tax invoice referred to as tax leakage that is widespread in such M&A transactions, miserable its valuation.
Regulatory stress
Then there’s the regulatory mountain which each Comcast and Netflix have to climb — and which Paramount doesn’t.
Brian Roberts is set to spin off his Trump-hating cable channel, MSNBC, nullifying some of the antitrust points on media consolidation.
But Trump isn’t about to forgive him for years of abuse at the fingers of Rachel Maddow & Co.
Accordingly, the pondering amongst attorneys who work on such offers is that if Comcast wins the bidding war, his antitrust chief Gail Slater will sue to cease the deal, focusing a prolonged probe on the undeniable fact that Comcast might be merging its Universal Studios with Warner Bros.
Roberts can go to courtroom to plead his case — and it’s price noting that the authorities has a horrible file on such lawsuits.
Still, we’re speaking practically two years of authorized wrangling that the WBD board may suppose isn’t price the bother.
Netflix faces related hurdles because it might mix its No. 1 streaming service with WBD’s No. 3.
And let’s not neglect its political baggage.
While Roberts has the MSNBC albatross, Netflix is run by Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos, who’ve spent years supporting progressive causes from the Left Coast.
That’s why the Ellisons imagine they will get away with paying not more than $27 a share for WBD — considerably under Zas’ $30 a share bogey.