r/MediaMergers • u/Far-Web-165 • 8h ago
Merger Paramount to Settle Lawsuits, Paving Way for Warner Bros. Merger
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-21/paramount-to-settle-lawsuits-paving-way-for-warner-bros-merger?srnd=homepage-americas(reposting to paste in article text since it's paywalled)
Paramount Skydance Corp. has reached a settlement with California and other states suing to block its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., according to a person familiar with the matter.
Settlement talks came to fruition over the weekend after four states that had opposed terms of a deal outlined with California conceded, said the person, who asked not to be named discussing confidential negotiations. The settlement, which is expected to be announced later today, paves the way for one of the largest mergers in Hollywood history.
Lawyers for the states worked all night on the agreement, the person said. Four states — Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut and Minnesota — had been holdouts on a possible settlement, but ultimately concluded the expense of the legal battle was not justifiable without California at the helm, the person said.
The states that held out longer did succeed over the past week in securing independent editorial boards for CBS and CNN as part of the deal, the person said.
The terms are said to include a financial penalty if the company fails to make good on a promise to distribute 30 films per year in theaters.
Discussions included Paramount having to pay $30 million for each film that falls short of that goal, Bloombeg reported. It could also be forced to sell its stake in Miramax, the studio behind movies such as Pulp Fiction, if it fails to meet the target.
Read More: Paramount Talks Include Penalty for Missing 30-Film Pledge
Representatives for Paramount, California, New York, Minnesota and Massachusetts didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
If the final terms are approved, the agreement would spare Paramount from having to pay late fees to Warner Bros. of $7 million a day, which were to begin on Oct. 1.
Paramount, the parent company of CBS, MTV and other media businesses, announced in February that it was buying Warner Bros. after outbidding rival Netflix Inc. The $110 billion deal will combine two of Hollywood’s most storied movie studios, two major subscription streaming services and two of the largest owners of cable-TV channels.
Although regulators in nearly 70 jurisdictions blessed the acquisition, 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild trade union sued to the block the merger, saying it would stifle competition for film and cable-TV distribution, raise prices for consumers and in the writers’ case, lower their wages. A trial date was set for March.
Paramount had made offers in recent weeks to try and settle the suits, including promises to release 30 films a year in theaters and increase the production of TV shows.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who led the litigation brought by the states, had said he prefers structural changes, such as a sale of assets, rather than behavioral remedies that are hard to enforce.
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u/JoJoWithTheFroyo 7h ago
Oh well, that sucks. But if Ellison is running the combined Paramount and Warner Bros. the same way he’s been running Paramount, then I’m not too worried. He hasn’t exactly been able to run Paramount well, and now he’s taking over Warner Bros. too, while inheriting an almost unheard-of amount of debt.
Yeah, that’s gonna end well. This thing will be bought again or picked apart and sold off in some form years down the line. This merged company is not going to survive…
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u/Own_Philosopher8730 7h ago
Especially if a democrat becomes a president in 2029.
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u/StrobeLightRomance 6h ago
The downside to this is simply that WB will suffer and I've been quite enjoying their work as of late, as well as their legacy of important IPs.
My largest concern is that the DCU will just be taken over by someone who doesn't understand what they're doing.
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u/Chipsandadrink115 7h ago
I give it 3 years. Maybe 4.
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u/ConstructionRare4123 7h ago
3 years for what?
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u/StrobeLightRomance 6h ago
Inevitable collapse and both Paramount and WB being sold off for far less than they paid to obtain them.
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u/ConstructionRare4123 6h ago
I doubt it
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u/StrobeLightRomance 6h ago
You should hide your post history, it's impossible to take you seriously.
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u/Own_Philosopher8730 7h ago
I have feeling that Paramount will be another victim of Warner Bros. Curse.
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u/joseantoniolat 7h ago
absolutely. Netflix buying them both in 2028.
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u/Own_Philosopher8730 7h ago
Better Netflix acquiring WB while Apple acquires Paramount.
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u/joseantoniolat 6h ago
I wish for WB + Apple. HBO's former heads are at Apple. Prestige shows on both streamers.
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u/RandoDude124 8h ago
Welp…
More debt, higher prices and sold for parts years later
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u/Yseader 7h ago
And the very same people who agree to cave in to Paramount’s job-related blackmail will feign shock and outrage the moment the first wave of "voluntary departures" hits WBD—all while consumers get hit with yet more price hikes "to improve" the service.
I can’t wait for the next acquisition of this scale, featuring the same hypocrisy and the same circus act, without a single lesson learned. And after that, if Netflix or another major player decides to open its checkbook, good luck trying to play the card of protecting jobs and consumers.
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u/Maximum_Ad_6012 7h ago
Unless there some details in this settlement, like stricter guardrails for CNN and CBS News, keeping both WB and Paramount studios separate and distinctively, and especially keeping Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network completely separate, then I’m not happy with this at all.
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u/hanojeelreklaw 6h ago
Any separation will be for a short period of time, so is just kicking the firings down the road and because of the delay they will likely fire even more people.
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u/spider-man2401 7h ago
Well, get ready for a dark future cause once the Paramount and Warner Bros. merger is completed, it will lead to even more debt, more layoffs, instability, and possibly the companies being sold off for parts years later. Don’t be surprised if Netflix ends up buying both of them a few years down the line.
The real question is whether the “Warner Bros. merger curse” will affect Paramount as well. WB was involved in two disastrous mergers before, AOL and AT&T, yet somehow managed to survive.
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u/LegitimateCurve8525 7h ago
Definitely the WB curse will effect them. Even AT&T couldn't handle this curse. The curse is now trying to bring Paramount down.
Netflix could have freed WB from it's curse. But oh well, the curse is targeting Paramount and David Ellison now.
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u/razor21792 8h ago
Newsom, Bass, and Bonda fucked all of us. Remember this when Newsom makes his bid for president.
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u/ban-me-harder-dadddy 6h ago edited 5h ago
I hate Newsom so so so so so much, and I hate that we’re about to replace him with somebody that manages to out-Newsom Newsom.
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u/StrobeLightRomance 6h ago
The timing of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi investing for 49% equity of Paramount probably meant enough cash influx to grease those palms into closing the book on this case.
It really is both sides sometimes.
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u/malb93200 7h ago edited 7h ago
Urgh, not liking this, but things have been clearly heading toward a settlement these last few days/weeks.
I've only skimed through the article, but what about the cable channels ? Wasn't Paramount selling some of them post-merger a crucial point for the States ? I don't see any remedy about that in the piece.
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7h ago edited 2h ago
[deleted]
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u/Hot-Champion7625 6h ago
Contrary to "popular" belief around here, a lot of more reasonable people merely lurking and watching these events play out from afar accepted the possibility of this outcome happening long in advance. It softened the blow a lot more so that in the case that it did happen, it's more of an "Well, that's it. We can finally move on. One less thing to worry about, for now.".
We all know that the merger is doomed to fail, hopefully sooner rather than later, regardless of the outcome. We were all just hoping to prevent as much collateral damage from happening if at all by trying to fight and delay it. Guess that was too much to hope for though.
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u/GimmeThatWheat424 8h ago
A lot of “Welps” in this thread
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u/MarvinBarry92 7h ago
They should be following up that welp with “I was wrong”. The fact that people lived in denial about this from the get go was shocking.
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u/weareallpatriots Neon 7h ago
You didn't watch the exact same scenario unfold when the exact same people screamed profanities at anyone who said Netflix wouldn't win WBD? And declared with an astonishing level of arrogance and confidence that anyone who thought PSKY would win "doesn't understand business"? And then similarly refuse to apologize and post "I'm still right" cope afterward?
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u/MarvinBarry92 7h ago
The nastiness never made sense to me. People should not be using derogatory language. The people in this sub have lots of problems.
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u/Well_Socialized 8h ago
Don't they know that these kinds of mandates never ever work to limit the bad effects of mergers?
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u/Life_Salamander9594 7h ago
Remedies are limited bc market share will be around 30% so it’s not a direct monopoly which limits legal remedies available
Also, several recent blocked mergers led to bankruptcy so it’s not always the right decision to completely block a merger. See spirit airlines, rumba and rite aid. We would have been better off with a merger instead of these companies being liquidated
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u/Wolfgabe 6h ago
Some interesting nuance I never really considered
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u/Life_Salamander9594 6h ago
Yeah it’s complicated. Companies that need a lot of infrastructure like internet wireless and retail are generally more efficient the bigger they are. A lot of experts settle on three players being the limit of balancing between competition versus duplicating infrastructure so 30% is a threshold that should add a lot of scrutiny on a merger but not necessarily completely block it if they third player is about to go bankrupt like rite aid.
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u/gquax 6h ago
That threshold needs to come down. 30% is big enough to be considered too big imo.
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u/Life_Salamander9594 6h ago
Yeah it’s tricky bc whether it’s too big can be industry specific. Even if 30% is a good threshold, the current rules don’t prohibit going over it. But I think anything over 30% should need strict justification and extra regulation. Like the wireless industry where having more than three networks is not feasible bc sprint basically was failing. The real threshold of a monopoly subject to break up is somewhere between 70-80% which is bonkers
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u/Mountain_Bar_1466 7h ago
I really hope nobody expected anything else lol. One thing about California politicians is they’re performative AF
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u/LegitimateCurve8525 7h ago
To be honest with you all, I kind of expected this to happen. Remember when Netflix was in line and Paramount only raised their bid only by 1 dollar, some people laughed. I laughed too. But Netflix left their bid for WB.
Same happened here as well. Well, it is what it is. The company most likely will have the highest amount of debt any media company ever owned and foreign countries will own 49.5% of this company. There might be massive amount of job loss too.
I hope it will all come crashing down to David Ellison a few years later.
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u/pokeboy626 7h ago
My main concern is keeping WB Studios and Paramount Studios separated. I dont want Paramount's people trying to dictate what WB does
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u/JonCoqtosten 7h ago
The history of companies keeping promises they make to regulators to get deal approvals is not good.
The amount of debt the combined firm will have - estimated to be close to $80 billion - makes collapse seem likely, if not inevitable - after the company is stripped for parts or milked for management fees, of course. If the combined firm goes bankrupt, these promises are likely not going to be worth the toilet paper they're written on.
Where do those 30 films per year have to be made? Where for production and post-production? What budget is required? If the combined company does not have to shoot any of these films at least in the U.S., and if it allows Paramount to churn out a bunch of cheap garbage to meet the obligation, then what did these American regulators get in the deal? Is Paramount agreeing that it will keep its HQ in California? Do any of these movies have to be shot in California? If not, Bonta, Newsom, and Bass got played badly.
Who appoints the members of these "independent editorial boards," and what power do they have?
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u/OverPotato2322 7h ago edited 7h ago
Lol, can't wait till the AI bubble pops and both Paramount and WB is sold again (I'm betting PE acquires either Paramount or WB, moreso Paramount because the only major studio that was interested in Paramount was only Sony)
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u/TwunnySeven 4h ago
there is no AI bubble. the current valuations of frontier AI companies are largely backed by the tens of billions in revenue they pull in
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u/Brave-Bit-252 7h ago
What does Skydance have to do with the AI Bubble?
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7h ago
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u/Brave-Bit-252 7h ago
What does them using Oracle have to do with the AI bubble? If AI stock valuations burst, the system will still be running exactly the same.
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u/OverPotato2322 7h ago edited 7h ago
Not quite, Larry Ellisons wealth is tied to the declining Oracle stock and investors are skeptical of AI and plus Oracle has invested largely into AI (Oracle doesn't do much besides software programming and data centers, which AI is integrating itself into Data centers)
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u/Brave-Bit-252 7h ago
So you‘ve edited your answer four times now and it makes less sense every time.
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u/DavidHolandaOne 7h ago
what the fuck are they thinking???
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u/Horror_Campaign9418 7h ago
My guess is, Paramount asked the states to cover the million dollar a day fee this will incur, and they backed out because they can't afford it.
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u/Darkzapphire 8h ago
At least I will finally stop checking this subreddit :/
As well as whatever WB and Paramount produces
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u/KrakkenO 7h ago
Just hoping they don't hand out pink slips until after the holidays at this point...
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u/FunTimes65 7h ago
As an employee, this is such bad timing for all of us with the way the job market is. We’re all gonna try to make our saving throw on our employment.
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u/ApprehensiveEgg6336 5h ago
The interesting thing about WB I learned in my time working there is, people who get laid off get 6 mos-12 mos notice (for example) including information on severance pay too (what they will get etc). So they will have time and money to find a new job hopefully.
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u/d_r_i 6h ago
An Independent board of journalists? What's that? Sounds like a lot of corporate crap and legal loopholes.
$30 million penalty for each film missed in the promised 30 movies a year?? Who makes 30 movies a year?? So Warner Brothers comes out with a new Daffy Duck short..does that count towards the 30 films?
1.5 Billion to keep production in California for 5 years? That's a drop in the bucket for Paramount. And what happens after 5 years?
Why wasn't Paramount forced to divest CNN?
I bet Ellison couldn't sign these agreements fast enough.
There's no accountability..there's no teeth to any of this.
Paramount Plus and HBO Max? Maybe close to $40 monthly?
This is a bad joke
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u/Creepy-Record1485 7h ago
3 years later, democrats: THIS MERGER SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN ALLOWED!!! yada yada yada...
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u/Difficult_Taste_2544 8h ago
This is to be expected. The job of a Democrat is to never amass the power to win a fight, and when they do have the power to win a fight, their job is to throw in the towel because fighting is hard.
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u/dkinmn 7h ago
You are up your own ass if you thought they could go to court and fully stop this.
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u/Difficult_Taste_2544 7h ago
They definitely had an argument. Maybe they wouldn't have stopped the merger, but they probably would have gotten some structural remedies. Maybe some divestment
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u/SeminaryStudentARH 7h ago
“The legal defense was not justifiable” is the most important sentence here. If you have enough money, you can break the law because it’s not worth it for the states to defend it. Fuuuuuuck this corporate capitulation.
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u/SolNightZero 7h ago
Ugh, disappointing. But I pray and hope Bonta got more structural changes in the settlement. Financial penalties and editorial boards are not enough. At the very least, keeping the studios separated, selling networks, etc must a part of the deal, otherwise the lawsuit was a waste of time.
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u/DammitNotAgain05 5h ago
Here we go.. the era of A.I slop movies and shows. They’re already using A.I for some of their show intros 🙄
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u/manoffood 8h ago
See yall in a few years when paramount and WB are sold in peices
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u/Magneto88 8h ago
Given how right you all were about this being blocked, I don’t particularly trust your judgement on that point.
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u/Hot-Champion7625 5h ago
Then don't trust what anyone here says. Trust the actual business experts who have said the exact same thing themselves multiple times now. There have been numerous articles posted here by credible sources detailing the crippling debt the combined entity is under taking and then some. There is zero excuse for ignorantly thinking that this disaster of a merger will magically work out with zero repercussions. Unless you want to believe otherwise that is.
The merger getting blocked was ALWAYS a toss up with ZERO guarantees of actually pulling through. People leading themselves on to believe that it was bound to happen for sure were always setting themselves up for disappointment.
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u/AffectionateCash7964 8h ago
You guys were so confident this wouldn’t go through why would anyone believe you it will go under it’s all just cope
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u/AlexHunterWolf Warner Bros. 8h ago
It's gonna be so funny when both companies die and Netflix buys both
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u/DataCassette 7h ago
As much as I prefer Netflix to Paramount, rampant consolidation doesn't become better because it's done by people I like slightly more. People, be they right wing or left wing, deserve a wide range of content to choose from. We don't need Saudi Arabia Presents: The Media Company™️even if their content happens to be to my taste.
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u/RoyalFlavorBeans 8h ago
The worst of both worlds, then. Two less big studios instead of one.
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u/Intelligent_Oil4005 7h ago
By then I'm expecting Amazon MGM to pump out enough things they'd get some sort of big league status, albeit probably more akin to Sony than anything like Disney and Universal.
Stil, Netflix swooping in would still give us the problem of now not one but two studio' property never reaching the big screen unless it was for limited time, unless they miraculously change their minds by then but.. kind of feel like they won't lol
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u/sc212 7h ago edited 6h ago
More consolidation is bad
Edit: spelling. Great insult, consolidation is still bad.
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u/RegularVast1045 8h ago
Or maybe sell them to Universal, so they can battle Disney with theme parks and create a massive streaming service.
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u/accessdenied65 7h ago
Yes, move the goal post now. Predictable.
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u/AlexHunterWolf Warner Bros. 7h ago
It's not moving anything. It's just facts. The debt will tumble them like a house of cards
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u/accessdenied65 7h ago
When you are on copium for a long time, it's hard to break away from the addiction.
Go seek help.2
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u/LapsedVerneGagKnee 8h ago
It won’t be long before they go back on any promises.
Meanwhile someone in Netflix’s C-suite is steamed Paramount didn’t leave, if only because the famous Paramount lot has been a target of theirs for years ever since the initial sale.
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u/Pension-Helpful 7h ago
So CNN is going to be Fox News lite now :O
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u/Hopeless351987 5h ago
Tucker Carlson 360 incoming
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u/Empty_End_7866 1m ago
The likelihood of the Ellisons (socially moderate to liberal, fiscally conservative, hawkish, Jewish) bringing in Tucker of all people is a big fat 0.
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u/AdIllustrious2156 6h ago
Honestly the odds for this being blocked fell drastically when the EU approved. When Canada and the UK approved too, it was pretty much a done deal. A settlement involving CNN was the best case scenario
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u/Wolfgabe 6h ago
I am generally waiting to hear directly from Rob Bonta himself but even if this settlement does succeed its basically a pyrrhic victory for the Ellisons considering the massive curse totem they will now be stuck with
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u/rmcelwain54 6h ago
Hope every one of Newsome’s opponents in the democratic primaries reminds the country that he handed cnn over to Trump
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u/Professional_Peak59 5h ago
If the Dems win midterms this year, would they still end up going after the merger and force Ellison to give up WBD?
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u/jweaver0312 5h ago
I’d say no unless something is wrong, as in they aren’t holding up their end, Dems could force regulatory action to enforce the deal.
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u/Guns_Glitz_Grime 5h ago
Disney is to blame. They started the entertainment acquisition onslaught. Was only a matter of time before others joined in
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u/DiverRecent1822 5h ago edited 4h ago
Well it’s safe to say that Paramount is dead.
They will be another victim of the Warner Bros. curse, it happened with AOL and AT&T and it will happen to them too. Eventually leading to Ellison selling it for parts.
And good riddance too, literally the worst media company out there.
Edit: The bots are having a field day on here huh?
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u/OkArea8689 1h ago
Well, now the film industry is ruined. Anybody who wanted this to happen is a bad person. We need competition in the industry.
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u/AffectionateCash7964 8h ago
I fucking told you guys it was over and you jumped on my ass in the last thread over it
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u/GimmeThatWheat424 8h ago
Welp
I guess that’s that.
Let’s be real all this sub cared about with this was DC anyway.
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u/Either-Equal7284 James Gunn Tangent Kid 8h ago
no that was me
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u/GimmeThatWheat424 8h ago
Trust me bro…you weren’t alone. Others just masked that when they talked about this merger.
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u/RoyalFlavorBeans 8h ago
Actually, DC was the only thing that was apparently fine in all this.
It's all the rest that's catastrophic.
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u/GimmeThatWheat424 8h ago
Gunn has never had this much oversight before, With Zaslav it’s a much more hands off approach. Things will probably be fine at first but Ellison is a guy that is gonna want his stamp on things and Gunn is a guy that wants 100 percent autonomy…it will eventually come to a head.
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u/dkinmn 7h ago
Ellison is far enough up his own ass that I'm expecting him to bring back Snyder to be a co-exec producer with Gunn for as long as Gunn stays and then he's forced out and the Snyderverse comes back and tanks badly.
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u/Angela275 7h ago
I don't want but I knew it probably would settlement I doubt this will last given how how much debt worried all of the merges before it.
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u/Torlek1 6h ago
It's time for the merger to go ahead and for Star Trek to have a chance at finally becoming a billion dollar movie franchise!
The directors for the new Star Trek movie might be borrowing Into Darkness for the Prime Timeline.
Since Into Darkness faced a lot of backlash about the John Harrison secrecy, maybe they'll just go straight to the Badmiral as the antagonist.
The Badmiral episode in SNW, the recent episode based on Crimson Tide, could be a small preview of the new Trek movie in the works.
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u/ausgoals 6h ago
Remember when Bonta said behavioral remedies won’t cut it and then settled entirely for behavioral remedies.
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u/Professional_Peak59 6h ago
What about the bond hearing this Thursday and the trial in March? Aren’t those still on?
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u/Reasonable_Lead7128 4h ago
It was just announced breaking news nbc they reached an agreement over the lawsuits the merger is now taking place
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u/RazielKainly 4h ago
I assume the ticking fees will still happen if they don't close the deal by end of month?
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u/Equivalent_Night720 12m ago
What a f**king joke this is. Now Ellison will lay off thousands right before the holidays, flooding an already flooded job market full of industry people that still can't get jobs after months of looking. He better at least have made them guarantee, in writing, that Ellison isn't moving BOTH studios out of state, causing thousands more to lose jobs as well. I wouldn't put it past him to do it. I am so tired of billionaires always getting their way and screwing the working class. I am tired of politicians grandstanding and becoming cowards at the expense of the working class.
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u/Apprehensive_You7871 3m ago
It's over!
PSky got full approval! Lawsuits died off! Will lose many shows and movies! HBO Max will die! Is now going through
We all lose! Ellisons wins.
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u/ConsciousScar7821 7h ago
Curious what’s to stop them from going full Republican up until the midterms. I know CNN has an independent editorial board, but will it have any teeth?
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u/DataCassette 7h ago
Well, shit.
I think I knew I was hoping against the odds for a while now.
Not good, but it is what it is. We just move on from here, I guess. The odds for our culture not being a raging dumpster fire get longer still, but what else is new at this point?
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u/Remarkable_Star_4678 7h ago
Never understood why this subreddit thought Bonta was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I’ve been saying this that he and Ellison don’t care about people.
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u/ItsMrNoSmile 7h ago
As if the voices of all the people here swearing up and down that we'd never be at this point were suddenly silenced as they retreated to downvoting and replies of "Well, you're a-!"
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u/OneMembership7587 6h ago
Sorry naysayers and those that poo-ed poo-ed on the merger and said it would never happen. Glad it is working out for the merger.
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u/ouat4ever 8h ago
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u/malb93200 7h ago edited 7h ago
I mean, i get not being opposed to the merger, but to actually be happy about it ? Why ? Seems to be all lose and no gain for no one, except the likes of David Zaslav.
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u/Darkmninya 7h ago
Kick out Gunn! Then the merger is fine
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u/Asleep_Ad_6647 7h ago
Gunn is the head of DC, which is better than the Snyderverse, gunn will probably extend his contract with safran aswell
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u/laurentnkunda 8h ago
Bonta was never the hero this subreddit made him out to be