As Paramount, with close ties to the Trump administration, entered the bidding, experts predict any merger will ‘raise red flags’ among regulators
As Paramount, with close ties to the Trump administration, entered the bidding, experts predict any merger will ‘raise red flags’ among regulators
Over the first 10 months of his second presidency, Donald Trump has not hidden his desire to control the US media industry – from encouraging TV networks to fire journalists, comedians and critics he dislikes to pushing regulators to revoke broadcast licences. Now he seems determined to set the terms for one of the biggest media deals in history.
It’s a deal that could have repercussions not just in the US, but across the world, with not just the future of Hollywood at stake but also the landscape of news.
Another American president likely would have politely declined to comment when asked by a reporter about a massive media merger that would require fact-driven oversight and regulatory approval by a purportedly independent-minded branch of their administration.
But when Trump was asked on Sunday about Netflix’s $82.7bn (£61.8bn) deal to acquire the studio and streaming businesses of Warner Bros Discovery – the media company whose assets run the gamut from Batman and Casablanca to The Sopranos, Succession and CNN – he didn’t hesitate to say he would be “involved” in the review process for the deal.
Days later a media conglomerate with close ties to his administration, Paramount Skydance, the company behind the Paramount Pictures movie studios, CBS US TV network and in the UK, countered with a hostile $108bn offer for the company.
Trump then offered a contrasting commentary on his role.
“I’m not involved in that,” he told reporters on Wednesday, before adding: “I will be probably involved – maybe involved in the decision. It depends. You have some good companies bidding on it.”
Contradicting himself, Trump then laid out a condition for his support of a deal: the company that buys WBD’s studio, HBO and its streaming assets must also acquire its television channels and make big changes at the cable news network he has long despised, CNN.
“I think CNN should be sold, because I think the people that are running CNN right now are either corrupt or incompetent,” he said.
Only Paramount – run and backed by Trump supporters – had bid for the entire company.
This isn’t normal, commentators and former antitrust officials were quick to point out. “It’s not designed to be a system where the president wakes up one morning and decides it. It’s actually supposed to be the opposite of that,” said Columbia University law professor Tim Wu, who served in Joe Biden’s White House from 2021 to 2023 as a special assistant to the president for competition and tech policy.
During the Biden administration, “we followed the old rules, and the old rules suggested that the White House had to stay very far away from mergers,” Wu said – though “the parties always wanted us to get involved”.
“It’s all set up to keep the White House away,” he said. “This White House? Totally different kind of place.”
Phillip Berenbroick, who served as chief counsel for the US Senate’s judiciary subcommittee on antitrust matters, said that while “it’s not surprising that [Trump’s] interested and says so publicly, that is different from how most presidents and how most administrations have treated the antitrust review process. I think he does relish playing the role of deal-maker”.
Paramount’s starring role raises the likelihood of Trump’s involvement, considering the company is backed by his longtime friend and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and run by his Trump-friendly son David, who has talked up the company’s “good” relationship with the administration.
