{"id":856157,"date":"2026-09-22T03:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T03:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/856157\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T03:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T03:18:09","slug":"paramount-settlement-protects-pluto-tv-may-divest-bet-comedy-central","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/856157\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount Settlement Protects Pluto TV, May Divest BET, Comedy Central"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tHere is a concession no one really asked for \u2014 the settlement of state attorneys generals\u2019 anti-trust lawsuit over the proposed Paramount<\/a>-Warner Bros. Discovery merger includes a provision ensuring that Paramount will keep Pluto TV<\/a> or another free, ad-supported streaming service for the next five years.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Pluto TV is protected, the settlement spells out which cable brands Paramount will have to divest if it fails to keep carriage negotiations for the Paramount and Warner Bros. basic cable networks at arm\u2019s length. The list includes two Par nets that already had been put on the block twice, BET<\/a> (and its various sub-channels) and VH1<\/a>, as well as Comedy Central<\/a>, with the company\u2019s flagships MTV and Nickelodeon out of danger.<\/p>\n

\n\tOverall, television feels a little like an afterthought in the settlement, illustrated by California AG Rob Bonta\u2019s opening remarks at his Monday morning press conference. He spent more than six minutes laying out the agreed-upon terms for film production and had only two lines about TV, one about the establishment of \u201ca news editorial independence board<\/a> to support CBS News\u2019 and CNN\u2019s continued editorial independence\u201d and one that \u201cParamount and Warner Brothers are required to continue negotiating their cable packages separately.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWith state AGs\u2019 action focused on protecting jobs, there is nothing in the agreement that would prevent Paramount from combining some of its post-merger TV studios \u2014 Warner Bros. Television, Paramount TV Studios and CBS Studios \u2014 which will result in layoffs. Or any guardrails limiting the number of positions that will inevitably be cut when Paramount merges Paramount+ with HBO<\/a> Max as the company had said.<\/p>\n

\n\tMovies and basic cable were the focus of AGs\u2019 legal battle because those were the areas where there were strong anti-trust concerns. (The combined HBO Max-Paramount+ will become a major SVOD player but will not have dominance in the space.)<\/p>\n

\n\tStill, the complete omission of the TV (or film) studios is surprising, as is the lack of mention of Paramount\u2019s pay cable network Showtime<\/a>, which, like the basic cable nets, negotiates carriage agreements. That would allow Paramount to bundle it together with WBD<\/a>\u2018s market leader HBO in dealings with operators.<\/p>\n

\n\tEmphasizing that, the settlement\u2019s statement about separate affiliation negotiations for Paramount and WBD\u2019s basic cable channels carries the following disclaimer: \u201cFor the avoidance of doubt, this paragraph does not apply to other Combined Entity offerings (e.g., premium cable channels, streaming services, or broadcast)\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe omissions are especially glaring given the attention Pluto TV got despite it not being considered in real danger and it having no counterpart on the WBD side.<\/p>\n

\t\tThe Curious Case Of Pluto TV\t<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the past year, Paramount\u2019s leadership has been bullish about Pluto TV, vowing to invest in the AVOD platform and grow it, which they have done in the form of a slew of library content acquisitions and making Pluto part of the company\u2019s backend tech stack convergence alongside Paramount+ \u2013 a complex, lengthy process which has largely been completed.<\/p>\n

\n\tLong before the Ellisons arrived on the scene, Pluto\u2019s star had started fading as rivals Tubi and Roku became more popular. Pluto, although it had been a pioneer of FAST when it was founded in 2014, fell back in the market-share race. Its co-founder, Tom Ryan, and other core staffers exited the company.<\/p>\n

\n\tEven so, the new regime has expressed optimism about aiding the potential of Pluto, which had been largely neglected for the previous couple of years.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI am a big believer in the FAST space,\u201d Paramount Chairman and CEO David Ellison said on the company\u2019s Q4 2025 earnings call. Pluto TV was talked up to advertisers at the Paramount upfront presentation in May as a key piece of the company\u2019s ad strategy, with upgrades ongoing and more underway. <\/p>\n

\n\tMost recently, Paramount noted that \u201cParamount+ and Pluto TV remain at the center of how audiences discover and engage with our programming as we build an entertainment platform for the future\u201d in its Q2 2026 letter to investors, with the company\u2019s executives saying on the earnings call that \u201cwe do expect that Pluto will return to growth in back half of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWith Paramount making a substantial investment in Pluto TV over the past year, there has been no talk of shutting it down. That has now been put on paper for the next five years in the anti-trust settlement. <\/p>\n

\t\tBasic Cable Haves & Have Nots \t<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to the settlement with the 12 state AGs, \u201cParamount and Warner Brothers are required to continue negotiating their cable packages separately \u2014 a negotiate-separately condition, preserving the competition that exists between them today,\u201d Bonta said Monday, adding, \u201cIt will mimic them being separate companies, even post-merger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs to how that separation will be ensured, the statement is a little vague, noting that there will be a \u201cmonitor\u201d and a \u201cstate committee\u201d that would assess any complaints.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf Paramount is caught in a \u201cmaterial violation,\u201d following a six-month cure period where the company can \u201ccome into compliance,\u201d they will have to sell one or more of the following linear networks: BET (Black Entertainment Television, including BET, BET Gospel, BET Her, BET Hip-Hop, BET Jams, and BET Soul), VH1, Comedy Central, Smithsonian, Destination America, and Science.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter Skydance\u2019s acquisition of Paramount, the company\u2019s new leadership has shared their intention to revitalize legacy cable brands such as MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and BET. The inclusion of two of the four on the potential divesture list is somewhat surprising but Paramount still has kept crown jewels MTV and Nickelodeon out of reach. <\/p>\n

\n\tAdditionally, the company already has Comedy Central\u2019s biggest program, South Park, locked into a Paramount+ streaming deal for the foreseeable future and just folded BET+ into Paramount+.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe rest of the channels on the list are small and, amid linear TV\u2019s continuing decline, Paramount likely won\u2019t mind divesting them anyway.<\/p>\n

\n\tDade Hayes contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here is a concession no one really asked for \u2014 the settlement of state attorneys generals\u2019 anti-trust lawsuit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[47133,4207,88,1035,4208,226553,204802,4974,361443,20007],"class_list":["post-856157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-bet","tag-comedy-central","tag-entertainment","tag-hbo","tag-paramount","tag-paramount-wb","tag-pluto-tv","tag-showtime","tag-vh1","tag-wbd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}