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Hollywood's Biggest Merger Gets Washington's Full Blessing
At 8:17 · chapter starts 6:32
David Folkenflik takes the anchor chair for the media story of the year: the DOJ's Antitrust Division has signed off on Paramount's $111 billion bid for the much larger Warner Bros. Discovery without imposing a single condition. [1] — David Folkenflik "The DOJ's Antitrust Division just waved through the biggest like-for-like merger in Hollywood history with zero conditions. Two of the last…" 06:31 The deal combines Paramount+ with HBO, CBS with CNN, and two of Hollywood's last remaining legacy studio empires — a combination Folkenflik describes as the biggest like-for-like merger in the industry's history. The DOJ's rationale was that in the streaming era, the relevant competitive market has exploded: Netflix, Apple, Amazon Prime Video, and others provide ample competition. That argument may be legally defensible, but the sheer scale of the consolidation — and the fact that zero divestitures were required — still struck observers as remarkable.
The DOJ approved Paramount's $111 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery with zero conditions attached — the biggest like-for-like merger in Hollywood history.
After an 8-month review, the DOJ's Antitrust Division found no threat to competition and imposed zero conditions on the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger.
Trump has openly said he wanted CNN in the Ellisons' hands. The Ellisons took over CBS, installed a right-leaning editor, and Trump liked what he saw. When the regulator is the regulated's biggest fan, don't expect an antitrust fight.
