Warner Bros. Discovery

Paramount Skydance has settled the antitrust lawsuit filed by a dozen states.

The settlement clears the way for its merger with Warner Brothers Discovery.

The Wall Street Journal says the merged company will not need to sell cable channels.

Paramount Skydance has been negotiating to close the deal since CEO David Ellison won the bidding war with Netflix to buy Warner Brothers back in February.

The Journal says a wide range of concessions were discussed.

Paramount offered to pay expensive ticking fees as part of the offer to top Netflix, and it must begin paying if the deal doesn't close by October first.

That deal appears to clear the way for the $110 billion purchase of Warner Brothers Discovery, CNN's parent company.

The head of WBD, David Zaslav, says the deal is now expected to close by early next month.

As part of it, Paramount will establish a, quote, "editorial independence board for CNN and CBS News.

The five board members will, uh, with at least 10 years of journalism experience, will resolve disputes or concerns over reporting bias," according to the paperwork.

People might be watching this one.

We've certainly talked about it a lot for political reasons, for how's it changing the world of streaming and Paramount attempting to buy Warner Brothers Discovery for $110 billion.

Some lawyers in California or other states were trying to block it, but Paramount has settled with these lawsuits, settled these lawsuits now.

So it looks like full steam ahead, does it?

And timing matters.

The deal has what they call a long stop date, i.e. it has to close by 30th of September.

Otherwise, Paramount faces $7 million a day of a penalty fee, a ticking fee, as it's called in M&A world, that's payable to the shareholders of Warner Brothers.

So the Ellison family was very keen on resolving this as soon as possible.

Later on in the show, we'll talk about the Paramount settlement.

Now the deal with Warner Brothers Discovery is clear.

That's it.

And the AEW trolling has already begun.

Some of it may kind of lead to where AEW's future could be.

I mean, don't get me wrong.

The trolls out there are saying, okay, the beginning of the end of AEW and Warner Brothers Discovery TV has now entered.

Some people out there will try to write it off as, I'm just going to give you facts, you interpret however you want, all right? As part of the agreement in this court lawsuit, in order for this sale to be finalized, the combined studio of Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery have to release at least 30 movies a year for the first two years.

How about data centers? How about AI and flock cameras? The powerful, the billionaires seem to be getting their way, and voices like ours don't get heard.

This is just another example of it, and I don't see a groundswell of people excited by the idea of Paramount Skydance buying or taking over Warner Brothers Discovery.

There was a story out there that Gavin Newsom pushed the attorney general to cut a deal.

What do you make of that? And then there are people who are saying Paramount didn't really give up much for this deal for this lawsuit to go away.

In 2024, the BBC announced budget cuts totaling £24 million, leading to a loss of 155 jobs, including 130 journalism roles.

The same year, in New Zealand, Warner Brothers Discovery chose to close all its news operations, resulting in 350 more journalists leaving their job.

As of 2025, after Trump's second administration decided to stop federal funding to USAID, independent media organizations in the global south, from Ukraine to Afghanistan, who were supported by USAID, were forced to lay off staff or shut down.

So that's the end of that quote.

Her body has never been found.

The mega merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Brothers Discovery is moving forward.

California's Attorney General announced this morning that he and 11 other states reached a settlement with Paramount CEO David Ellison, son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison.

Under the terms, Paramount agrees to freeze the merger until an antitrust challenge is resolved.

To reach the deal, Paramount agreed to increase film production in Hollywood and the US.

Paramount is required to move production back to the United States by spending as a floor at least $300 million more each year in domestic production.

The settlement also requires the new company to negotiate basic cable channels for Paramount and Warner Brothers, independent of each other, to preserve competition.

All right, coming up next, cleaning up the Oakland estuary.

It doesn't mean that it's 31 of Rose movies.

It applies to the combined Paramount WBD company.

So Paramount's existing theatrical slate counts two.

Right, so that's what we're wondering here.

Suddenly you're looking at your bank statement like, why do we own the entire entertainment industry? You know, you thought you were just paying utilities.

No, apparently you're financing Warner Brothers Discovery.

And if you're in New York, Con Edison sends you that bill and suddenly your marriage becomes a hostage negotiation.

You open the envelope, you look at your spouse, back at the envelope.