Yesterday, the inevitable outcome that so many feared - and expected - actually happened:
The key piece that finalized the deal? Money (hint: it’s ALWAYS money):
The $1.5 Billion Concession That Unlocked Paramount’s Deal With California
Investment in domestic production, quiet mediation from Gavin Newsom and threat of relocating help Paramount forge settlement
BTW, just as an aside, California’s annual GDP is somewhere just north of $4 trillion dollars. So, this settlement will theoretically bring in - on a one-time basis - approximately 0.00375% of California’s annual GDP. In the world of accounting, that means the $1.5 billion settlement amount is immaterial in California’s overall financial picture. Additionally, the film/TV industry contributes about $54 billion to California’s annual GDP, so the $1.5 billion represents approximately 2.8% of California’s annual GDP.
$1.5B sounds like a lot, but in the scheme of California, it’s a drop in the bucket.
Now, let’s take a quick look at Paramount and Warner Brothers. In 2025, Paramount Skydance had approximately $30 billion in gross revenue; Warner Brothers Discovery had approximately $37 billion, so together those companies grossed approximately $67 billion. $1.5 billion is approximately 2.2% of the combined entities annual revenue.
Remember, the state attorneys general sued for anti-trust reasons. Anti-trust enforcement was historically used to offset the tendency in capitalism for industries to consolidate - primarily through mergers, acquisitions or sheer domination by one or a few entities - resulting in reduced or even eliminated competition. And competition is the theoretical basis for the touting the efficiency and value-setting that defines capitalism.
In the past, anti-trust enforcement, primarily through the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act, was used extensively. The U.S. broke up companies such as Standard Oil, American Tobacco, AT&T. It also levied strong enforcement actions against IBM, Microsoft, and yes, Paramount Pictures. Finally, it blocked mergers in several industries, including telecom (AT&T/T-Mobile), healthcare (Cigna/Anthem and AETNA/Humana), and retail (Heinz/Kraft).
Part of the issue arose with failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork and his view on anti-trust and industry concentration. Prior to Bork and his “conservative” compatriots, the view on the necessity of anti-trust was based on concern about economic concentration and business structure. The basic idea was: If a company becomes too dominant, or if a merger substantially increases concentration, that can itself threaten competition.
Bork took - and subsequent “conservative” courts now take - the view that anti-trust is more about consumer welfare and demonstrable harm to competition. Soif a company has a significantly concentrated share in a given industry, but promises to keep prices low, that is okay (of course, the problem is that prices NEVER stay low in the long term in industries with significant ogopolistic or monopolistic concertation).
Currently, more often than not, the SEC and FTC and DOJ simply agree to financial settlements and allow mergers to go through. This is very much similar to myriad instances where corporations are indicted for criminal/civil action and end up settling financially “without admitting or denying guilt”, with minimal repercussion for the corporation and literally zero repercussions for the individuals who perpetrated the theoretical illegal activity. Tis includes JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Live Nation, Deutsche Bank, Wachovia, SeaWorld, Coast Produce, the Aon Corporation and the list goes on…
Back to Paramount/Skydance and Warner Brothers Discovery.
The real issue here is the consolidation of the legacy media in the hands of ideological owners.
Fox News, Wall Street Journal - Rupert Mordich
Sinclair Broadcasting - The Smith Family
Paramount, CBS (now CNN) - The Ellisons (with big help from the Saudis and other Middle Eastern Nations)
Washington Post - Jeff Bezos
Facebook (News and Social) - Mark Zuckerberg
Liberty Media - John Malone
Twitter - Elon Musk
Politico - Axel Springer
And then there is Breitbart News, News Nation, One American News Network, etc. etc. etc.
All owned by staunch “conservatives” and/or people who’ve thrown their lot in with Trumpism.
The goal in the case of Paramount/Warner Brothers was not to settle for financial purposes. It was to maintain the integrity of competition in the entertainment and news businesses (with the news business arguably being a public good).
The state attorneys general failed to achieve that goal.
Some of the other state attorneys general came away disappointed by the outcome because they wanted stronger concessions.
One of those attorneys is Connecticut AG William Tong, who said in a Monday statement that his office “wanted and demanded full divestiture of CNN and CBS News,” but did not get it. “I am deeply disappointed that we could not do more,” he wrote.
While the numbers always sound big fines in the millions and sometimes even billions - for mega corporations the money is just a drop in the bucket and the cost of doing business.
Behavior won’t change unless and until individuals who act badly are held personally responsible, and anti-trust law is enforced in meaningful ways beyond financial fines.
If the Democrats do manage to take back one or both seats of congress, this needs to be another in a long list of prioritites.
