The Guardian - Netflix and Paramount deals are both wrong for Warner Bros Discovery – and democracy
CJL director Courtney Radsch contends that both the Netflix and Paramount–Skydance bids for Warner Bros. Discovery would deepen media concentration in ways that endanger free speech, audience choice, and democracy by placing cultural storytelling and news under the control of conglomerates willing to bend to political pressure.
Netflix and Paramount deals are both wrong for Warner Bros Discovery – and democracy
Donald Trump wants CNN sold. He has said so repeatedly and publicly, demanding it “should be sold” in any deal involving Warner Bros Discovery. Now one of America’s largest media companies is racing to oblige him, while another looks to consolidate its power. Wednesday’s House judiciary hearing on streaming competition – where lawmakers voiced concern over the Trump administration’s influence and a potential merger’s toll on consumers – made clear just how dangerous both options are for free speech, audiences and democracy itself.
Netflix has bid $82.7bn for Warner Bros Discovery, only to be countered by a hostile $108bn takeover bid from Paramount Skydance, led by David Ellison, son of Trump’s ally Larry. Neither deal serves the public interest, and both are dangerous for the future of free expression. Both would produce an unprecedented concentration of power over what Americans watch and which stories get told.
They would do so at precisely the moment when the Trump administration is openly weaponizing merger reviews to extract editorial concessions from media companies desperate for regulatory approval.
This is not speculation; it is already happening. Paramount paid $16m to settle Trump’s meritless lawsuit against CBS last year. As it sought Federal Communications Commission approval for its merger, the corporation installed Kenneth R Weinstein, whom Trump once nominated as ambassador to Japan, as a “bias” monitor at CBS News, an extraordinary step condemned by an FCC commissioner, Anna Gomez, as “never-before-seen forms of government control over newsroom decisions” that “violate both the first amendment and the law”.
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