#paramount skydance

Hugo Lowell at The Guardian:

Senior White House officials have discussed internally their preference for Paramount Skydance to acquire Warner Bros Discovery in recent weeks, and one official has discussed potential programming changes at CNN with Larry Ellison, the largest shareholder of Paramount. The discussions, according to people familiar with the matter, come as Paramount portrays itself as the best bid for Warner Bros Discovery, after the company announced last month it was open to offers, because it would have an easier time getting through regulatory review.

Ellison often speaks to connections at the White House and in at least one phone call engaged in a dialogue about possibly axing some of the CNN hosts whom Donald Trump is said to loathe, including Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar, the people said. The conversation also touched on floating names to replace Burnett and the possibility of running CBS assets like its flagship 60 minutes program on CNN air – proposals that have animated the White House, the people said.

[...]

The behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts to position Paramount as the frontrunner, especially with the Trump administration, underscore the Ellisons’ intense interest in acquiring Warner Bros Discovery – and the White House’s interest in seeing its preferred bid succeeding.

Paramount is preparing a bid for the entirety of Warner Bros Discovery ahead of a 20 November deadline to submit non-binding, first-round bids. The company previously submitted multiple unsolicited and unsuccessful offers to buy Warner Bros Discovery, which then put itself on the block.

Trump already has a positive view of the Ellisons after Paramount paid a $16m settlement to the president over an interview 60 Minutes did with Kamala Harris last year. Additional backing from White House officials would smooth over any other hurdles for the Paramount bid.

Paramount could also benefit from additional ties into Trump’s orbit. Multiple current and former consultants in Washington, including people now working inside the White House, used to have contracts with Oracle, where Larry Ellison is executive chairman.

The only regulatory scrutiny is likely to be an antitrust review by the justice department. Former antitrust division officials who served in Trump’s second term, under assistant attorney general Gail Slater, suggested they did not immediately see competition issues. “This won’t pose serious antitrust issues,” one of the former officials said of the Paramount bid, adding that Ellison’s contacts with the White House would similarly not pose legal problems. “That’s just how the government relations game is played,” the official said. [...] Other parties interested in Warner Bros Discovery are Netflix and Comcast, the parent company of NBC News and the liberal cable channel MS NOW, though the network is being spun off into a separate company called Versant. Still, Trump could hold the network’s consistent criticism of him against Comcast.

The Justice Department said it determined that the massive merger was “not likely to result in harm to competition or American consumers.”

June 12, 2026, 1:50 PM MST / Updated June 12, 2026, 3:37 PM MST

By Steve Kopack, Ryan J. Reilly and Daniel Arkin

The Justice Department has signed off on Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, clearing the way for a merger that will unite two historic Hollywood studios and reshape the American entertainment industry.

Example:

INT. PARAMOUNT - EXECUTIVE SUITE- DAY

Paramount was in debt. (Shocking, I know.) Their parent company decided to sell Paramount. Skydance has proposed $8 Billion.

Last year, Skydance and Paramount announced they wanted to merge into "Paramount Skydance" with David Ellison as chair and Jeff Shell as CEO. If they merged, the company would be valued at $28 Billion.

The current Interim CEO of Paramount is Chris McCarthy. He is the one who made the deal with Matt and Trey to make the specials for P+.

The problem is a huge merge like this needs to be approved by regulatory agencies.

Then, CBS did an interview with Kamala Harris, that Trump claimed was edited. A Right Wing org, "Center for Human Rights" filed a complaint with the FCC on Trump's behalf. He sued CBS.

The new FCC head, claimed that the interview could get the merger rejected.

This video covers the Trump lawsuit and FCC etc really well.

Anyway, if you are a broadcast Network, you especially do not want to piss off the FCC.

This led to Paramount doing a number of things to try and kiss Trump's ass and capitulate to the Admin so that the merger would get approved including cutting programs, internal reviews, etc

INT. SOUTH PARK STUDIOS - DAY

Meanwhile, Paramount and SPS is in the midst of their another lawsuit with Warner Bros. over the streaming rights to the seasons and specials, which was a $500 mil deal.

WB is alleging that Paramount "blatantly intended to prop up Paramount+ at the expense of Warner/HBO," and also that Paramount committed "flagrant duplicitous contortions of fact and breaches of contract,"

Paramount filed a countersuit basically saying WB got what they paid for and their suit was frivolous.

Now Matt and Trey have accused Jeff Shell (who, remember, stands to gain a new CEO position of a $28 billion company) of interfering in negotions between Paramount and Warner Bros.

M&T's attorney has threatened legal action against Paramount (by way of Skydance, basically).

Mind you, Paramount's streaming deal is set to expire. Paramount has two years left on its $900 million deal for the streaming rights to SP.

EXT. SOUTH PARK STUDIOS - WEEKS LATER

And now we have the delay...

As I said, their statement is a response to a Comedy Central press release. The delay wasn't a SPS press release. They say "We hope fans get to see them somehow,"

It really sounds like they had nothing to do with the delay and it's all on Comedy Central/Paramount. It sounds like they may have grounds for further interference.

EXT. PARAMOUNT EXECUTIVE SUITE - MOMENTS LATER

Need an evil corporation to fight? Because I’ve surely got one for you..

As of recent, Paramount Skydance has officially released the long awaited Among Us cartoon with zero fanfare, screwing Infinity Train creator Owen Dennis over yet again.

This isn’t the worst the company’s CEO is doing right now, believe it or not! David Ellison is also:

- Trying to merge with Warner Bros Discovery (an already suffering corporation) so he can take CNN and warp it into yet another propaganda factory

- Screwing the Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise over

- Manipulating other higher-ups into believing that his clearly disastrous merger will “save Hollywood”

- Having his merger backed by the Trump Administration due to his father Larry Ellison having ties with them, which of course connects to the Epstein Files