Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery reportedly signed an agreement on a $110 billion deal. The merger would make one of the largest media empires in the world. Paramount could now control two key movie studios, multiple streaming platforms, and two of the biggest news operations on television, CBS and CNN. Geoff Bennett discussed the implications with Roben Farzad of Full Disclosure.
Geoff Bennett:
Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery reportedly signed an agreement today on a $110 billion deal, a merger that will make Paramount one of the largest media empires in the world.
It happened after a dramatic turn of events and after Netflix walked away from its proposal to buy out Warner Bros. Paramount could now control two key movie studios, multiple streaming platforms, major intellectual property brands, along with television and cable channels, and two of the biggest news operations on television. That’s CBS and CNN.
But this isn’t a done deal yet, as it’s now under investigation and awaiting regulatory approval.
For more on all of this, we’re joined now by Roben Farzad, host of public radio’s “Full Disclosure.”
It’s always great to see you, Roben.
Roben Farzad, Host, “Full Disclosure”: Thank you, Geoff.
Geoff Bennett:
So we will get to the concerns about the media consolidation regarding this deal, but on the specifics of the deal itself, when Netflix said that this offer was no longer attractive, what was that really about? Was it just about the price or deeper concerns about taking on Warner Bros.’ debt and its market exposure?
Roben Farzad:
I think Netflix got every signal from this White House and the FCC and Donald Trump being explicit in both with background persuasion that by far he prefers Paramount and the Ellisons taking this over.
He’s obviously cast aspersions on CNN, which is a small part of the economics of the broader Warner Bros. Discovery franchise, but it’s a lightning rod for him. And he’d like to see CNN under new ownership, ideally friendly to the persuasions of Donald Trump.
Geoff Bennett:
So this wasn’t about the offer price. It was about Trump putting his thumb on a scale.
Roben Farzad:
Yes, because Netflix has so much money. And, by the way, this ceased to be uneconomic a while ago, like a bidding war.
And it’s happened in the history of LBOs and massive mergers and acquisitions. Indeed, Warner Bros. Discovery itself is like — they say there’s something about Mary. There’s something about Warner.
For 25, 26 years, everybody has been mega-merging, acquiring, stripping, flipping it off to other people. It was AOL. It was AT&T. It was AT&T, this Discovery disaster, and now it’s being sold off to another multibillionaire. It’s been certainly an ill-starred asset to own.
Geoff Bennett:
So what does Paramount get by acquiring it?
Roben Farzad:
You get this Holy Grail of a mega streaming app, right? Paramount+ or whatever it is, and it’s predecessors’ app, Showtime and the other things, they’re known as the kind of the third-tier apps.
But if you smash HBO Max or whatever they’re going to call it into this, think about “Game of Thrones,” “Sex and the city,” “The Sopranos,” that superior I.P., you suddenly have a value proposition vis-a-vis a Netflix or an Amazon or an Apple to say, hey, we’re big players, we deserve your 25 or 30 bucks a month. You should cancel the other players.
So this is something that Disney is currently duking out. It had acquired massive FOX assets. Amazon and Apple obviously have unlimited amounts to play in this, Google, which owns YouTube. It’s a whole different Hollywood than it was just even 10 years ago.
Geoff Bennett:
The Ellisons’ close proximity to President Trump drawing scrutiny, could that relationship shape the regulatory process?
Roben Farzad:
I think it could, in that every indication has been that it’s going to get smooth sailing, right? The FCC is OK with it.
You saw what the acquisition of Paramount and maybe kind of the hush money paid out, what it was for CBS News. And there are potentially some scalps that are going to have to be delivered in this with CNN. There’s fear there. Again, CNN by itself is hugely profitable. It’s diminishing, but its competitive bogey right now is The New York Times. It’s not these other issues.
It’s not this bottleneck of leadership or ownership or big tech money coming in. The bigger perception is that this was done for political reasons, to fast-track the acquisition of much more important and profitable film and studio and streaming assets.
Geoff Bennett:
And what does it mean that one family potentially could own so much media and entertainment?
Roben Farzad:
And to say nothing else of TikTok, which Larry Ellison and Oracle control 15 percent of.
Geoff Bennett:
Right.
Roben Farzad:
We are in that era right now. If you think about Elon Musk coming in and making an uneconomic acquisition of Twitter, did it matter in the end? Did it bankrupt him? He might have a trillion-dollar SpaceX IPO.
Washington Post and Jeff Bezos, was $250 million supposed to be meaningful to a person maybe worth $200 billion? He still gutted that. It’s a really treacherous time. As you see with the stewardship of the Ellisons and CBS News, they’re willing to cut where others didn’t cut before. And there’s going to be no shortage of debt and cost saving synergy expenses in this and a tremendous amount of fear and loathing in Hollywood, in CNN.
It’s just been a pretty lost decade for all of media and entertainment.
Geoff Bennett:
Roben Farzad, always good to speak with you.
Roben Farzad:
My pleasure.
