added<\/a>, \u201cWe\u2019re doing exactly that by investing in great content and attracting and empowering exceptional talent, both in front of and behind the camera, and equipping our people with cutting-edge technology that enables them to do their best work.\u201d\n <\/p>\n\n Paramount prevailed in the bidding war for WBD in late February after Netflix declined to counter Paramount\u2019s latest bid.\n <\/p>\n
\n Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos suggested afterward that Paramount was an \u201cirrational\u201d bidder and said that Netflix walked away rather than overpay for the Warner Bros. studio, the HBO Max streaming service and other trophy assets.\n <\/p>\n
\n Those Warner assets will turn Ellison, the son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, into one of the world\u2019s most powerful media moguls.\n <\/p>\n
\n He has been building to this point for quite some time, having successfully taken control of Paramount from the Redstone family last year by merging it with his production company, Skydance Media.\n <\/p>\n
\n Then he approached WBD CEO David Zaslav almost immediately with a buyout offer, which WBD repeatedly rejected until the share price exceeded $30 per share.\n <\/p>\n
\n In the weeks since Paramount emerged victorious, top executives have begun the integration planning process with WBD, although the two companies must still operate separately for the time being.\n <\/p>\n
\n Paramount argued in response to the anti-merger open letter that the deal \u201cstrengthens both consumer choice and competition, creating greater opportunities for creators, audiences and the communities they live and work in.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n At a movie exhibitor convention last week, Ellison reiterated his pledge to release at least 30 new movies in theaters per year through both the Paramount and Warner Bros. studios.\n <\/p>\n
\n But it might be difficult to make the math work. The combined Paramount-WBD will be laden with debt, creating red flags for credit agencies and all but guaranteeing that management will conduct mass layoffs to cut costs.\n <\/p>\n
\n After the WBD shareholder vote on Thursday, Ellison will be in Washington for a dinner \u201chonoring the Trump White House and CBS White House correspondents.\u201d The event coincides with the White House Correspondents\u2019 Association\u2019s annual dinner this Saturday, which Donald Trump is attending for the first time as president.\n <\/p>\n
\n The Paramount soir\u00e9e, first reported by Lachlan Cartwright\u2019s Breaker newsletter, has drawn some fierce criticism, and some merger opponents plan to protest outside the event Thursday night.\n <\/p>\n
\n The company is not responding to inquiries about the event. But it\u2019s easy to see a connection between the dinner plans and the ongoing regulatory review of the WBD deal.\n <\/p>\n
\n Paramount\u2019s warm relationship with Trump has contributed to a widespread perception that the administration has blessed the deal. FCC chair Brendan Carr said last month, \u201cI think this is a good deal, and I think it should get through pretty quickly.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n However, the Democratic state attorneys general think differently. The state AGs are contemplating whether to challenge Paramount-WBD on antitrust grounds.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt is not a done deal,\u201d actress Jodie Sweetin, best known for playing Stephanie on \u201cFull House,\u201d said on CNN International\u2019s \u201cQuest Means Business\u201d earlier this week.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cYou can still be fighting this, and really the biggest and most important place to fight it is at the state attorneys general level,\u201d Sweetin said.\n <\/p>\n
\n A coalition of state AGs recently succeeded in halting Nexstar\u2019s takeover of local TV stations owned by its rival Tegna.\n <\/p>\n
\n The US government could scrutinize the money behind the deal. Paramount\u2019s financing includes backing from sovereign investors in Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.\n <\/p>\n
\n However, a Paramount regulatory filing said earlier this month that the sovereign wealth funds will have no governance rights and that their relatively small stake may not automatically trigger a national security review.\n <\/p>\n
\n European regulators are also taking a close look at Paramount. In the United Kingdom, the Competition and Markets Authority is soliciting public comments and signaling that it will soon launch a phase-one investigation.\n <\/p>\n
\n From Paramount\u2019s perspective, there is no serious antitrust argument against the takeover. For example, a combination of HBO Max and Paramount+ still wouldn\u2019t be nearly as big as Netflix.\n <\/p>\n
\n Additionally, a person close to the transaction said, \u201cWe have been talking with regulators for months and months already.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Analysts say Paramount could well make concessions to regulators, resulting in a relatively swift deal approval.\n <\/p>\n
\n In the EU, regulators could prod Paramount \u201cto sell smaller European cable brands, divest niche channels, or spin off certain regional assets,\u201d the Wall Street research firm MoffettNathanson wrote in an analyst note last month.\n <\/p>\n
\n Alden Abbott, who was the FTC\u2019s chief legal officer during Trump\u2019s first term, wrote in a blog post<\/a> that the scrutiny of Paramount-WBD is \u201cmuch ado about not much.\u201d\n <\/p>\n\n The deal \u201cdoes not present a clear mechanism for anticompetitive harm, nor does it appear likely to enable the exercise of market power,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAt the same time, it offers plausible efficiencies that could strengthen competition against larger, well-capitalized rivals.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Those rivals include not just Netflix, but also tech giants like Google, Apple and Amazon.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paramount\u2019s blockbuster acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN\u2019s parent company, is poised to clear a pivotal hurdle later…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-412398","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}