To the surprise of no one who knew Paramount Skydance chief David Ellison held all the cards and these 12 fascist Democrat state attorneys general had no legal grounds to stand on, a settlement has been reached between the two parties, which makes it almost certain the merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) will be finalized.
Best of all, at least for Ellison, it will be finalized before October 1, which is when he would be required to pay a $7 million per day ticking fee to the WBD board.
“Paramount has reached a deal with 12 state attorneys general that removes a major obstacle to closing its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery,” reports the far-left Variety. “The merger was on hold pending the outcome of the states’ antitrust lawsuit, which was set for a trial on March 2, 2027. The $111 billion merger is the largest in Hollywood history.”
Had Ellison waited until the trial in March, that ticking fee would have added up to about a billion dollars.
Variety also admits that what we all knew to be true was true…
The discussions also focused on editorial oversight of CBS News and CNN, a key concern for East Coast attorneys general. Sources said the settlement does not require Paramount to make any major divestitures.
Here’s what we so far know about the specific settlement terms…
“The states that held out longer did succeed over the past week in securing independent editorial boards for CBS and CNN as part of the deal,” reports the far-left Bloomberg. “The terms are said to include a financial penalty [of $30 million] “for each film that falls short of” Ellison’s promise to produce 30 movies per year.
This fascist move to force a private corporation to run a news outlet in a State-approved way was the only true sticking point. Everyone knew the merger was a real and necessary one. With Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook), Apple, and Netflix involved more and more in entertainment content, WBD and Paramount could either merge and become larger and therefore more competitive, or they could eventually be eaten alive by an already mammoth company, which meant an even worse outcome for competition.
It made no business or regulatory sense to stop the merger.
This was all about partisan politics.
This was all about California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s fear that Ellison might stop CNNLOL from continuing to do this…
Now, you watch… No one at CNN will squawk even a little bit about the government sticking its nose in CNN business. Why? Because in this case, CNN agrees with the government. Hey, fascists of a feather…
The bottom line is that David Ellison won all the marbles. He outmaneuvered Netflix, even after WBD agreed to a deal with Netflix. Then he muscled these communist attorneys general by making a very real threat to move Paramount to Tennessee, which he would have done, and I hope he still does.
Anyway, in your face, Mark Ruffalo.