1,000+ Hollywood Insiders Write Letter Opposing Paramount/Warner Bros Merger
from the growth-for-growth's-sake dept
More than 1,000 top Hollywood professionals ranging from Glenn Close to Denis Villeneuve have signed off on a new letter opposing the merger between Larry Ellison’s Paramount/CBS and Warner Brothers, warning that the massive $111 billion deal will result in unprecedented layoffs at a time when Hollywood, and American consumers, are already reeling from layoffs and higher costs.
“This transaction would further consolidate an already concentrated media landscape, reducing competition at a moment when our industries—and the audiences we serve—can least afford it,” the authors wrote. “The result will be fewer opportunities for creators, fewer jobs across the production ecosystem, higher costs, and less choice for audiences in the United States and around the world. Alarmingly, this merger would reduce the number of major U.S. film studios to just four.”
As we’ve noted previously, the massive combined debt created between the Skydance/CBS merger and the upcoming Warner Brothers merger would cause unprecedented layoffs across Hollywood, despite David Ellison’s repeated false claims to the contrary.
As we’ve seen with similar mergers (including every big merger Warner has ever been involved with) the pointless consolidation is also guaranteed to raise prices, erode media diversity, degrade journalism, and result in an overall lower quality product. That’s before you even get to the perils of Saudi and Chinese financing, or Larry Ellison’s ideological ties to the Donald Trump authoritarian movement.
Ellison’s over-extension on AI, and the unprecedented debt load from his media ambitions, could easily combine to result in financial headaches that would make past Warner Brothers mergers, including the disastrous AT&T ownership period, seem quaint.
With Trump corruption ensuring no meaningful federal review of the deal (despite ongoing pretense by his DOJ), the most likely avenue for a blockade of the deal would come courtesy of a lawsuit by a coalition of states attorneys general, likely led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
“We are grateful for their leadership, and stand ready to support all efforts to preserve competition, protect jobs, and ensure a vibrant future for our industry, for American culture, and for our single most significant export,” the authors note.
Filed Under: consolidation, creatives, david ellison, high prices, hollywood, larry ellison, layoffs, merger, streaming, video
Companies: paramount, warner bros.
Comments on “1,000+ Hollywood Insiders Write Letter Opposing Paramount/Warner Bros Merger”
The “J.” in Michigan J. Frog apparently stands for “Grim Reaper”
IF they bought stock, they might have a say.
But they didn’t and they don’t.
Industries don’t exist to provide jobs. They exist to provide a product that people will pay for.
You've turned me around
From a common sense perspective, I’ve been opposed to the WB/Oracle merger. But, that image of Death Frog coming to murder Oracle? That’s got me onboard.
Get ’em, Froggy! Take ’em down!
Every state AG that isn’t a complete muppet needs to do everything they can to mire this merger in as much legal quicksand as possible, and should they fail, the EU should start investigating to bog it down further. This is in nobody working in entertainment’s interest, it’s certainly not going to benefit audiences, the only people who will benefit will be the worst politicians and the wealth extraction class like Zaslav and his ilk.
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So you’re advocating lawfare. Even when there is no legal basis, at all.
Neat. Everyone knows who and what you are.
Liberals are the fascists.
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No, they’re advocating for people in positions of power using the levers of power available to them so they can at least slow down a merger that has no business happening.
You raise an unintentional point, though: Why do you seem so amenable to a small group of people controlling the content of most-to-all of the media we see and the outlets through which that content is experienced?
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The problem is that nobody can see the future.
If OpenAI has a single chance (even if looks like actually none at all) to make decent money, Oracle could get its $300B in five years, and Paramount-Warner could be saved.
Even if the actual truth is that Altman and Ellison are two filthy liars, it doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t be right a single time. Microsoft has also lied about layoffs when it bought Activision, and since it fired about 10% of employees, it has left Activision pretty much living its life, as promised.
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That one “if” does an amount of lifting that would best be described as “even Superman would have trouble with this”.
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Proceeds to describe “lawfare” exactly.
Neither you nor anyone in a state government gets to determine that.
It’s not nearly so bad, you only hate it because it’s people you disagree with.
Why am I OK with ELon Musk controlling the vast majority of private space launch capacity because he fuuckign ownes it.
Retard.
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I wouldn’t like it even if it were people I agreed with. A small number of people having ungodly amounts of control over what media people can experience and how people can experience it doesn’t bode well for anyone. That such control is falling into the hands of people who are more than happy with helping to make the general populace more ignorant and more compliant with the government compounds the problem.
Also: Man, you are insistent on using that slur now. You rarely used it until after Trump got elected the second time. Seriously, if saying slurs is so “in” with right-wingers right now, why not use the N-word next?
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It is actually the duty and prerogative of attorneys general to protect the residents of their states from violations of the Constitution, other laws, and ethical standards.
It would be bad even if it were people I agreed with owning massive portions of the media. But I generally disagree with anyone owning that much of anything, so no one I agree with would ever do that and if they did, I wouldn’t agree with them. It’s bad on principle regardless of who does it.
This is called moral consistency. That you assume others are as partisan and sycophantic as you only says a lot about you.
This hero-worship of a billionaire is pathetic. Do you ever wish you could do something you were personally proud of instead of latching onto the sociopathic, greedy machinations of parasites to feel good about yourself?
You’re just a fan. You’re not playing on the team. You aren’t winning when they make more money. You’re a zombie ant with ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus in your brain and you’re thinking, “we’re on the same team and we’re going places together!”
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Wanting the government to enforce anti-trust laws and not allow politicians to restrict constitutional rights by favoring billionaires in a supposedly free market isn’t advocating for lawfare.
Lawfare is when people like Trump and Musk issue SLAPP lawsuits when anyone says or does anything they don’t like.
Even Leonard Cohen knows you’re full of shit.
I suppose if you’re so uneducated that you actually think “fascist” just means “person I don’t like.”
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Lawfare is the continual filing of SLAPP suits, attacking corporations, journalists, celebrities and even former employees to rob them of their free speech. Lawfare is threatening to do everything in your power to make sure only your donors can strike deals that, in a world where the laws were enforced, wouldn’t be allowed at all. Lawfare is turning the DOJ on anyone and everyone who hurt your feelings in some way, dragging them out to give testimony in front of dribbling wackadoos from Bumblebutt, Kentucky about Aliens, Cheese Pizza and whatever conspiracy the krokodil rotted GRUsers of 4chan have come up with.
It’s cute you think I’m a liberal, and that it’s a gotcha. I’m a European leftist, but a pragmatic one, and you’re just a moron.
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Reminder that under right-wing ideology, Trump weaponizing the DOJ to go after his political enemies is morally righteous and justified, but Biden doing it (if he had ever done it) would’ve been a gross misuse of presidential power that would’ve required impeachment, use of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, and summary execution for treason.
Bad Move
Trump will insist they allow it to go through just because 1000 Hollywood professionals signed it!
So liberals are the fascists because they checks notes don’t want overwhelming consolidation in the hand of a small number of people to control and weaponize said consolidation to push their actual fascist agenda. All run by someone who got the job because not for merit. But because they are one of the dictator’s bootlicker’s son.
Not to mention how bad this would be for a so called “America First” agenda by putting thousands out of work.
Ok logic checks out.
Conservative Brain Rot is really something isn’t it.