{"id":354149,"date":"2026-09-23T01:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T01:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/354149\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T01:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T01:44:08","slug":"nyc-mayor-zohran-mamdani-slams-paramount-warner-bros-merger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/354149\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Slams Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tNew York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a> criticized the Paramount<\/a>-Warner Bros. Discovery merger following Monday\u2019s settlement<\/a>, calling it a \u201cshameful monument to corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAmerica is free only when the media is competitive, independent, and accountable to the people,\u201d he wrote on X<\/a> Tuesday afternoon. \u201cThis merger strikes a chilling blow against that freedom \u2014 and hands even more power to billionaires like David Ellison to decide what Americans see and hear, all while lifting scrutiny off the federal leaders who pushed it through.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis decision is a shameful monument to corruption and a betrayal that the American people won\u2019t soon forget,\u201d the mayor added.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was revealed on Monday that 12 states, including California and New York, and the Writers Guild of America agreed to settle their antitrust lawsuits against Paramount Skydance, owned by Ellison, over its $111 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, paving the way for the mega merger that will vastly reshape Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong the deal terms<\/a>, which were announced by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who led the state\u2019s case, Paramount has committed to release a specific number of films per year, increase film production in the U.S., honor union agreements to protect workers and form a new editorial independence board \u201cto establish guiding editorial and journalism principles\u201d for the company\u2019s news operations, CBS News and CNN.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his post, Mamdani also expressed his appreciation to New York Attorney General Letitia James \u201cfor the protections she secured for workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMamdani\u2019s criticisms came after The Hollywood Reporter reported<\/a> that factions appeared to emerge within the 12 states\u2019 alliance leading up to the settlement over whether to accept the deal. New York was among the holdouts, alongside Connecticut, Minnesota and Nevada.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the deal was announced, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong expressed his concerns, saying the state \u201cwanted and demanded full divestiture of CNN and CBS News. We wanted to save ethical and independent journalism and news. We fought aggressively for that remedy. I am deeply disappointed that we could not do more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, James didn\u2019t condemn the settlement, writing<\/a> in her own statement, \u201cParamount\u2019s commitments will allow the film and television industry to continue to thrive with more movies produced in America and $1.5 billion of new investment in film production. I have met with unions representing entertainment industry workers as our case progressed, and I will continue to closely monitor Paramount\u2019s activities to ensure they are following this agreement and the law.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani criticized the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger following Monday\u2019s settlement, calling it a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64,3005,132076,28052,82],"class_list":["post-354149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-paramount","tag-paramount-warner-bros","tag-warner-bros-discovery","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}