Paramount Promises Meaningless CNN ‘Oversight Board’ To Try And Gain Merger Approval

from the pinky-swears dept

It’s always the same routine.

Before each giant merger the companies promise that the new combined entity will deliver the sea, moon, and stars. We’re told the consolidation will result in untold synergies, massive job growth, and incredible new innovation. Yet in a country too corrupt to have functional antitrust enforcement or working regulators, what we get instead are mass layoffs, higher prices, less competition, and shittier product.

That’s been particularly true in media. And it’s been particularly true when it comes to the last quarter century of mergers related to Warner Brothers. Paramount’s latest $111 billion merger with Warner Brothers is no exception, and as a state antitrust lawsuit threatens to topple Larry and David Ellison’s ambitions, the company is making all sorts of promises that this time will somehow be different.

David has already falsely promised the merger will be a massive job creator for California, despite absolutely no meaningful indication that’s true. And this week, hoping to quiet concerns that Bari Weiss will do the same thing to CNN she’s doing to CBS (namely turning it into right wing billionaire agitprop), the company is promising regulators some sort of journalistic oversight board to protect CNN:

“The media conglomerate, whose efforts to acquire CNN parent Warner Bros. Discovery have stalled in federal court after a group of 12 attorneys general levied antitrust concerns against the proposed deal, has considered setting up an oversight committee to govern the news giant.”

Like every pre-merger promise, this is utterly meaningless. Rupert Murdoch promised such an entity in 2007 when he acquired the Wall Street Journal, but it’s nowhere to be found today. The Ellisons know they’ve helped gut what’s left of U.S. regulatory integrity via Trumpism, and with the eroded power of unions there’s really nothing requiring they follow through on any sort of promise.

David Ellison recently penned an editorial in the New York Times insisting he’s not political and he’d be a good steward of what’s left at CNN, but nobody at CNN actually believes him. They can see what Bari Weiss is already doing to CBS, and they’re very much right to be worried. Ellison may truly believe a rich nepobaby allied with Trumpism is somehow “not political,” but that belief is just as worthless as this new fake oversight board.

At the same time Ellison is promising this toothless new oversight board and that he’ll protect Hollywood movie production, he’s simultaneously threatening to pull Paramount out of California entirely if he doesn’t get everything he wants. But that’s likely even if the deal is approved, given that migrating film and TV production overseas is an ongoing trend.

Hollywood is still rocked and reeling from COVID, previous pointless consolidation, and massive migration of production overseas. You’ve got numerous high level technically skilled production folks resorting to driving Ubers amidst historic layoffs. Throwing more consolidation and another right wing billionaire into that volatile mix is going to be disastrous, regardless of any promises made.

The only valuable path forward to protect labor, journalism, and informed consensus is scrapping the deal entirely. Then focus on battling corruption, restoring regulatory integrity, embracing antitrust reform, empowering independent journalism and content creation, strengthening unions, restoring media consolidation limits, and kicking back aggressively against the self-serving right wing billionaire effort to dominate every last aspect of modern American life.

Filed Under: antitrust, consolidation, david ellison, journalism, larry ellison, media, mergers, oversight

Companies: cnn, paramount, warner bros.