from the merge-ALL-the-things! dept
As we’ve documented, Trump’s right wing billionaire friend Larry Ellison (and his nepobaby son, David) recently acquired CBS and likely co-ownership of TikTok. Like Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the goal isn’t really subtle: Rich right wingers want to own the entirety of U.S. new and old media, then convert it into a giant propaganda and lazy infotainment mill that blows smoke up their asses.
The Ellisons have since set their sights on Warner Brothers, CNN, and HBO. It won’t be cheap; it’s estimated that Larry and company will have to pay upwards of $60 billion for the acquisition. The Trump administration has openly signaled that they’d very much like the Ellisons to succeed here, in part to force a dying cable new channel (CNN) to be even friendlier to Trump than it already is.
There’s a wrinkle though: both Comcast (NBC Universal) and Netflix are also rumored to be interested in acquiring some or all of Warner Brothers (HBO being the prize). As we’ve noted repeatedly, as the streaming market saturated these executives have shown they’re all out of original ideas. The only way to goose quarterly earnings is more pointless, generally harmful consolidation:
“This could be Comcast’s last shot at transforming NBCUniversal into a long-term structural winner in media,” LightShed Partners analyst Richard Greenfield wrote in a note to investors. “If Paramount or another buyer acquires Warner Bros., there would be no obvious merger partner for NBCU.”
Contrary to what breathy pundits like Matt Stoller claimed last election season, the Trump administration has been a complete mindless stamp for more harmful consolidation — provided you kiss Donald’s ass with enough vigor. Which is why Comcast, despite being repeatedly criticized by Trump for NBC’s occasional efforts at journalism, has been throwing money at the president’s new ballroom.
It’s pretty clear that Trump’s DOJ and FCC are likely to erect hurdles and obstacles making it difficult for anybody to outmaneuver Larry Ellison here. It should be interesting to watch Trump lackeys like Brendan Carr twist themselves into pretzels trying to pretend they’re conducting an equitable merger review. It should also prove interesting to see in what new ways Netflix and Comcast execs are willing to debase themselves.
Whoever wins the bid, we all lose. Warner Brothers is already the shredded husk of what was left after decades of similar, pointless consolidation, starting all the way back with the pointless AOL deal in 2001, then later layoff and chaos inducing acquisitions by AT&T and Discovery.
Skydance, Paramount, and CBS haven’t even finished firing employees due to their last series of pointless mergers. Now they’re already gearing up to generate massive new debt to acquire Warner Brothers and CNN. That’s going to result in all the usual additional layoffs and corner cutting, before you even get to the problem of letting Larry Ellison turn CBS and TikTok into right wing propaganda outlets.
Netflix and Comcast winning this bid is probably the best of a bunch of bad outcomes, but that’s going to require that both companies seriously level up their ass kissing of our mad, idiot king.
Filed Under: brendan carr, consolidation, david ellison, donald trump, journalism, larry ellison, layoffs, media, mergers, propaganda, video
Companies: cnn, comcast, hbo, nbc universal, netflix, skydance, tiktok, warner bros. discovery
