BREAKING: Netflix Backs Out of Warner Bros. Deal, Clearing Path for Paramount
Netflix says it is backing out of an offer to buy Warner Bros., which means that Paramount Skydance, under David Ellison, is likely to acquire the company that owns Warner Bros., CNN, HBO, and other major media assets.
Earlier today, Warner Bros. announced that the bid submitted by Paramount Skydance was superior to Netflix’s bid and gave the streaming giant four days to counter. Netflix released a statement this afternoon saying, in part: “At the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid.”
Ellison, who has a close relationship with President Trump, his administration, and top Republican senators, already controls Paramount, which includes CBS, CBS News, Paramount Pictures, Paramount+, and a portfolio of cable networks.
If completed, the deal would consolidate an extraordinary concentration of news, entertainment, streaming, film, and cable assets under a single corporate structure — reshaping the media landscape in both Hollywood and Washington.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates. Please forgive any grammatical errors.
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A relatively moderate concern that this mega-merger raises is that the consumers lose whatever small benefit in the marketplace that some degree of competition for customers mostly in the entertainment market. That is important, and not just for economic reasons. What we consume as entertainment does have an effect on our social, moral, cultural and perhaps other values. Just from that vantage this consolidation is unlikely to help make our world a better place.
But the much larger problem concerns the role of media as the so-called Fourth Estate, which is essential in a democracy. When media gets to big and powerful it doesn't just report on the news; it makes the news. This brings back nightmares of William Randolph Hearst, "Yellow Journalism" and infamously playing a major role in starting the Spanish-American War.
Look at the damage that the "news" giant, Fox News has already done to this country.
This is probably a great move for unrestrained and unregulated capitalism and a truly terrible move for media, the citizens and for democracy.
If the FCC was doing its job instead of kissing Trump's ass it would block this and all similar media mergers. But do not hold your breath. Trump's bitch, current head of the FCC, has shown that he has no interest in doing what is right.
Oh nooo!