Paramount Skydance has completed its $111B merger with Warner Bros. Discovery (arstechnica.com)

88 pointsby Mgtyalxan hour ago92 comments

simonw 42 minutes ago

Nilay Patel: https://www.theverge.com/podcast/1004286/senator-adam-schiff...

> One of the longest-running tropes at The Verge is that a workable antitrust policy for the United States would be simply to forbid companies from buying Time Warner because it has never worked and it may never work again, and that we should just pass one law.

Checks out:

Jan 11, 2001: AOL and Time Warner merged to create AOL Time Warner

June 14, 2018: AT&T acquired Time Warner, renamed WarnerMedia

April 8, 2022: WarnerMedia spun out of AT&T, merged with Discovery

dkobia 40 minutes ago

A behemoth indeed but the numbers also tell an interesting story. For TV screen share, Youtube has ~13% of total US viewing time vs ~6% for Paramount/Warner. They also go into this merger with staggering debt which does not bode well.

lokar 25 minutes ago

I wonder what that % would look like for US voters over 60

scyzoryk_xyz 20 minutes ago

This would be the anti anti trust argument - that it's not studio vs studio, but it's type of screen-time vs other types of screen-time.

Was it Reed Hastings that was painting Netflix's main rival not other streaming platforms, but other types of leisure like video games? This was during the streaming wars IIRC.

Regardless of how you look at it, this is yet another confluence of IP franchises merging together, whatever juice is left in them squeezed out and reprocessed over and over over time. Kind of what Oracle is in software I guess?

Working in an adjacent entertainment IP focus business myself, my eyes are glazing over a bit at this point.

patwolf 14 minutes ago

This is the same argument from when Sirius and XM radio merged. It didn't matter that they were monopolizing satellite radio because the real competition was terrestrial radio and internet radio.

jedberg 11 minutes ago

> Was it Reed Hastings that was painting Netflix's main rival not other streaming platforms, but other types of leisure like video games?

Yes. He always told us that we don't need to worry about the other streamers nearly as much as we have to worry about them turning off the TV and playing games or (gasp!) going outside. TikTok/Instagram Reels wasn't a thing yet, but if it were, I'm sure they would have been on the list too.

thousand_nights 13 minutes ago

youtube has slowly become like 90% of my TV time over the past few years, I think it's the fact that you don't have to commit to watching 40+ minutes of something every time and there's just way too much interesting content on it

and i'm not even someone you'd class as young anymore, so I don't think this is a younger generation thing

bigwheels an hour ago

Can this be undone in the future if folks realize it was too monopolistic and it was in fact an anti-trust violation?

I wonder if David Ellison is a fun guy IRL.

Y_Y an hour ago

He has a nice yacht, I bet it's fun on the yacht.

yolp5 41 minutes ago

Probably not if you're an underage girl though.

fhub 34 minutes ago

Are you insinuating something about David Ellison here?

yolp5 34 minutes ago

It's one big club

kridsdale1 18 minutes ago

He’s only making an implication.

Hamuko an hour ago

Seems to me that these companies will say pretty much whatever during the merger process, and as long as there's no concrete repercussions written down somewhere, just do whatever since it's much harder to break a company apart than it is to block a merger.

bigwheels an hour ago

The pre-merger settlement approved by the current supreme court was that Skydance would: (1) Agree to production quota of 30 movies per year, (2) Domestic spending commitments, and (3) Separate cable package negotiations.

Assets: TNT, CBS, CNN, MTV, TCM, Showtime, Adult Swim, DC Studios, Paramount+, Nickelodeon, HBO/HBO Max, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network

Film Rights: Star Trek, Gremlins, Beetlejuice, DC Comics, Tom & Jerry, Harry Potter, Citizen Kane, Transformers, A Quiet Place, Looney Tunes, The Conjuring, Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones, Dora The Explorer, Mission Impossible, The Lord of the Rings, SpongeBob SquarePants, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Dune 3, Minecraft, MonsterVerse

Remember that Citizen Kane is the movie about a media tycoon who buys everything he can and ends up alone in a mansion full of stuff.

scun 30 minutes ago

Nothing on that list should have lived this long.

aleksandrm 25 minutes ago

As a Trekkie, I'm offended.

scun 21 minutes ago

Then you are too invested for your own good.

whycome 24 minutes ago

So you’re saying this opens up the possibility of some wild crossover media stories. Star Trek exploring new worlds that also include krypton, cybertron, and the game of thrones world. Oh Dune too. And maybe do the time travel thing to see a Lord of the Rings middle earth. And have Dora graduate to captain of a star ship (or explore the sea and encounter SpongeBob and Aquaman). Batman can team up with the Mission Impossible crew to solve a mystery. Ninja turtles in a mortal kombat? Wonder Woman in Westeros with Harry Potter?

Maybe a Sora descendant will allow user-directed content to emerge.

kridsdale1 5 minutes ago

Please enjoy this SlopGen Fantasy Skydance Kingdom.

https://chatgpt.com/s/m_6ac56dbab5448191866eb7c80c31c025

nutjob2 41 minutes ago

If the Trumps get their cut, you're golden.

yolp5 39 minutes ago

> Can this be undone in the future if folks realize it was too monopolistic and it was in fact an anti-trust violation?

I predict the democrats winning, shoving it all under that table and pushing for "reconciliation" and "moving forward" while continuing the rotten status quo that got Trump elected in the first place. Maybe a few token prosecutions of low level wage workers involved.

lokar 22 minutes ago

IMO, a better solution for the broadcast media part of this is to delegate content regulation to the states when the signal from a tv/radio station is entirely within one state (and some kind of join regulation when it spans >1).

Concentrating so much power in the federal government is problematic, and unnecessary.

anthonypasq 21 minutes ago

serious question how could you possible argue this is monopolistic when Disney, Netflix, and Youtube exist. It doesn't pass the barest level of scrutiny.

rileymat2 6 minutes ago

Monopoly is the wrong word, but it has a close cousin, “anticompetitive”. For free market people one of the major role of the government is maintaining competition and avoiding collusion, combining to competitors is straightforward collusion.

hilariously 18 minutes ago

Should we wonder if Goebbels was a fun guy irl? I don't get it.

rwmj 8 minutes ago

I learned from working with some that psychopaths are a lot of fun going for a drink after work, but at work they make your life a misery.

prometheus1992 an hour ago

not a fan of CNN, but a very right leaning person is the owner of CNN now. pre-dictatorship vibes!!

Waterluvian an hour ago

I don’t follow the sentiment.

Right wing people have repeatedly captured and destroyed journalism outlets they deem undesirable. Not that I’m saying CNN is any good.

nomel 43 minutes ago

Do you think only left leaning perspectives should be reported?

There should be a diverse leaning of news companies, otherwise you'll only get half truths. You can't expect a left leaning news org to report anything bad about the left, or right leaning news org to present anything bad about the right. The left will be motivated to find flaws in the right, and the right will be motivated to find flaws in the left. That's a good thing. I believe an adversarial system is required to find truth. A center leaning news org is nice, but they may be motivated to keep their reporting "even", to not appear biased, which isn't really possible with the tick tock of republican and democrat leadership.

A for-profit news org changing leadership/alignment, in a response to massively falling profits [1], isn't a sign of dictatorship, it's a sign of them being aligned to the reason they exist: making moneys.

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cnn-net-worth-sliced-half-192...

nextstep 37 minutes ago

Do you have an example of left-leaning reporting that is mass media in the US?

reliabilityguy 34 minutes ago

WaPo, NYT, The Atlantic, NPR, and many others.

sailfast 32 minutes ago

Have you read the WaPo and NYT lately?

lokar 20 minutes ago

NPR takes "both sides" reporting to an absurd extreme

prometheus1992 19 minutes ago

WaPo? definitely not. going through independence crisis.

NYT - i think so.

NPR - funding crisis.

The Atlantic - i don't read this - is this the one who's journalist was added in the top secret signal chat?

hilariously 14 minutes ago

It's not a clear divide between right and left, and NYT, the Atlantic, and NPR stans right wing voices constantly, have constantly used their editorialization to promote right wing ideals, and have gone out of their way to center right wing voices to give the appearance of being centrist to the right, which has had a direct impact in their perception as not really left wing by any of the left.

Now the center right is supporting concentration camps like "alligator alcatraz" so the overton window has shifted a lot in the last ten years.

penskymaterial 32 minutes ago

Yes, all of them, minus the ones you can count on one hand that's missing a few fingers from a fireworks mishap.

prometheus1992 37 minutes ago

>>Do you think only left leaning perspectives should be reported?

No! but where did you get that from?

There is Fox news, X, and Truth socia for right leaning perspectives.

jasondigitized 36 minutes ago

In a alternative universe, a very wealthy person starts a not for profit news agency and gives zero f's how many eyeballs it gets. Hires an army of world class journalists, investigators, and producers to churn out high quality, vetted, in depth content. Does this exist?

kridsdale1 15 minutes ago

Bezos with the WaPo was this until 2024.

TheOtherHobbes 17 minutes ago

I think the public should be able to view true left-of-centre perspectives from mainstream media outlets, and that is very much not happening in the US.

If - for example - you find a major news outlet that's pro-union, pro-single-payer, pro-wealth-taxes, and pro-debt-free-education, let me know.

nomel 4 minutes ago

> view true left-of-centre perspectives from mainstream media outlets

Do you think this is being prevented somehow? There are many left leaning news agencies [1]. Maybe the "problem" is that they're all for profit, most of which comes from ads, most of which are anti union companies.

What's the alternative? Mandated reporting?

[1] https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/media-literacy/2021/sh...

netsharc 10 minutes ago

This is probably my leftist bias, but ever consider that "leftists" are more interested in laws and decency whereas "rightists" are more interested in protecting their tribe/movement? But you think both sides play like "the right" (each only interested in exposing flaws of the other side) because you're seeing from your right-leaning perspective...

Democrat Al Franken got kicked out of Senate when it was found he inapproprately kissed a woman. I can name a long list of creeps in the GOP side who received protection from their side. Matt Gaetz, Roy Moore, Sexual Harassment Hegseth, Epstein-Friend in Chief. The GOP doesn't seem to have any principles about which sexual deviant they have, they just care about having the majority (in congress) or the power. Oh yeah, speaking of that, sexual assaulter Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh...

I'd trust left-leaning media to report wrongdoing whoever does it, whereas right-leaning media will gloss or bare-face lie about wrongdoing done by the right, and exaggerate about wrongdoings by the left...

philsnow 9 minutes ago

You'll still only get half-truths, but maybe (maybe) the sum of the vectors will be roughly normal

Georgelemental 25 minutes ago

Where "right" means specifically "Likud"

blakesterz an hour ago

First it was Time in 1990, then AOL then AT&T then Discovery and now this. That's 5 owners since 90 for Warner Brothers and none of those really worked out well. I don't know enough to know if this stands a better chance, but if I was going to bet, I'd bet Warner has a new owner before 2030.

kwanbix an hour ago

Yes! What the consumer needs! Less competition! Hurrah!

Sorry for the sarcasm.

stavros an hour ago

Less regulation means more innovation!

roroh4310 an hour ago

I will believe this internet comment. Thanks!

stavros an hour ago

It is in your best interest. All this innovation is sure to mean better quality of life for the average person, and not at all a widening of the income gap.

Papazsazsa 33 minutes ago

I've seen plenty of negative (and legitimate) sentiment around this merger but I'm cautiously optimistic that David Ellison, being half the age of anyone else with greenlight authority, will do something different/better.

developerDan 22 minutes ago

His running of Skydance says otherwise. The most formulaic and bland film studio there is.

hilariously 14 minutes ago

As long as you are hoping he has a really, really, really positive view of Israel you're going to be happy!

xnx an hour ago

Seems fine. There are more options for entertainment than ever. Often these mergers don't work out anyway.

ramon156 44 minutes ago

how exactly do they "not work out"? its two behemoths merging for the sake of more money

cdrnsf an hour ago

So when do they raise prices and start laying folks off?

cmorgan31 an hour ago

They already acknowledged layoffs so likely within 30 days the cull list will be presented to senior leadership.

toomuchtodo an hour ago

Their debt load is enormous due to how quickly debt costs have risen from M&A talks to issuing the debt.

https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/skydance-credit-rating-down...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-01/paramount... | https://archive.today/SEtX9

cdrnsf 31 minutes ago

I'm sure they'll figure that out.

brnt an hour ago

Do we really need two Ellisons?

thinkingtoilet an hour ago

Do we even need one?

superxpro12 an hour ago

Its so weird how these layoffs somehow targeted every left wing news organization or show. We just cant be certain how that happened. oh well

chasing an hour ago

You have to admit that David Ellison is extremely talented at being born to one of the wealthiest people in human history.

b0rtb0rt an hour ago

so does this mean i get paramount plus for free with my hbo?

throw03172019 an hour ago

It means they are going to raise prices for both platforms because they can.

fooqux an hour ago

And then everything else will follow suit. Not that they haven't already been doing just that.

TheOtherHobbes 14 minutes ago

Plus ads. And biographies of Trump's kids.

2muchcoffeeman 42 minutes ago

Everybody just stop subscribing and do something else and pirate the shit out of their content.

greyw an hour ago

If it makes them more money

rylando an hour ago

Free? I don’t think a monopoly knows the meaning of that word

Hamuko an hour ago

It means that Paramount Plus is saddled with debt, and HBO is saddled with debt. And that someone needs to pay off that debt.

cheesecakegood an hour ago

So they’ve committed to for example releasing 30-32 movies a year for the next five years [1] but after that, no promises. Good thing mergers are famously temporary and we never need to worry about the next 10 years! Oh wait…

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/09/25/paramount-hollywood-prom...

tech234a 11 minutes ago

T-Mobile raised a lot of plan prices exactly 5 years after their merger with Sprint.

trebligdivad an hour ago

When do we get Bugs Bunny on the Enterprise ?

wccrawford 34 minutes ago

I'm not even mad. Let's do it. With Marvin the Martian.

They had a Lower Decks cartoon crossover already, so they can't even deny the possibility now.

ReptileMan 21 minutes ago

Let's hope that the fears of new owners being rightwing are correct so we can finally see The Censored Eleven in their full glory.

Hikikomori an hour ago

Another nail in Americas coffin.

stock_toaster an hour ago

Yet another oligarchy centralization play. I assume more to come.

smashah an hour ago

How much did the Gulf states pledge towards this?

optimalsolver an hour ago

From what I see on r/stablediffusion, Hollywood has maybe 2 years left, in the optimistic case.

fooqux an hour ago

Even if it gets good enough, you're forgetting about everything else that goes into movie making and distribution. Hollywood will keep their hold on media, they just might use AI to increase profits even higher.

john_strinlai an hour ago

i am extremely wary of making any predictions about ai, given what's happened in the last year, but i would put good money on hollywood being around in 2 years. there's much more to the movie industry than slapping some video together.

r/stablediffusion seems to be a bit disconnected from reality, to put it nicely.

beanjuiceII an hour ago

ehhhh i dunno about that. the stuff i've seen from people, and watched looks much better than most crap hollywood puts out anymore

john_strinlai an hour ago

to reiterate: there is more to the movie industry than putting a video together

foobarian an hour ago

The vibe I get is like when the Meta VR app store product launched, and there was huge promises and optimism about all the amazing apps and experiences, but when you bought it and actually tried, it was a few juiced up flagship things and a bunch of shovelware.