Opposition grows to Paramount-Warner Bros. merger settlement as deal enters critical week
This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.
See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.
Set us as preferred Tensions flared on the eve of a critical week ahead for Paramount Skydance’s proposed $111-billion acquisition of Warner Bros.Discovery, amid new urgency for talks aimed at settling antitrust litigation brought by California Atty.
Gen.Rob Bonta and 11 other states.Over the weekend, opposition intensified to a proposed settlement as details trickled out, including a proposal to establish a bipartisan editorial board to monitor cable news channel CNN, one of Warner’s premier properties that Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison would control along with CBS News.
It wasn’t clear Sunday whether a proposed settlement would require Warner to sell off assets — something Bonta repeatedly has insisted upon.Critics of the deal urged Bonta and other state attorneys general to resist pressure to reach a settlement that would allow Ellison’s deal to move forward.
“State Attorneys General, please hang tough against the giant proposed Paramount-Warner Brothers merger,” Rep.Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) wrote on social media late Saturday.
“Paramount, run by the Ellisons, should not own both CBS and CNN.California must not cave and take a deal that leaves both under the same owner,” Rep.
Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) wrote.Hollywood Inc.
A resolution would allow David Ellison’s $111-billion takeover of Warner Bros.Discovery to finalizeBonta and Ellison have made progress in the talks in recent days, according to four people familiar with the matter not authorized to speak publicly.
However, New York’s Letitia James and at least two other attorneys general who joined Bonta’s lawsuit in July privately have expressed reservations about the proposed compromises, believing they don’t go far enough to mitigate concerns about the power Paramount-Warner Bros.would wield over the film and TV industries should...