Will California AG Force Paramount to Sell CNN? Bonta says: ‘I have no idea where that came from’
David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance hopes to complete mega-merger with Warner Bros. Discovery to be completed within the next few months, but there are still a few roadblocks left.
One of those is a possible lawsuit from Democratic attorneys general, with California Attorney General Rob Bonta specifically saying his office is investigating the proposed Paramount-WBD deal over antitrust concerns.
Bonta, in a recent one interview with MS NOWsaid he and his team are conducting a “straightforward antitrust analysis” of the proposed merger between Paramount and Warner Bros., which is “our line.” And he appeared to dismiss a report that the California AG wanted to require Paramount to divest CNN as a condition for the deal to otherwise pass as “opinion.”
Bonta was asked by Jacob Soboroff of MS NOW in an interview on Sunday about a report from Puck who said, “Rob Bonta wants Paramount to sell CNN” and that “the widespread belief among people close to Bonta is that a divestiture of the news network would be the best way for Democrats not to feel terrible about Trump-friendly Paramount’s upcoming $110 billion deal for Warner Bros. Discovery.” The Puck report also said that Bonta “knows he will have a hard time” winning an antitrust case to stop the merger.
Regarding the report, Bonta responded, “Honestly, I don’t know where that came from. There have been a lot of opinions about what I think, what I say, or what I’m going to do, and I have no idea where it comes from. I know a lot of people are interested in this transaction and what my office will do. And what we will do is what I have always said. We are investigating. The transaction has not passed scrutiny. There are red flags in the air everywhere.”
“We’re worried,” Bonta continued. “We are concerned about the job losses, the price increases and the lack of quality and choice for consumers. And so we are looking and we will decide in a timely manner what to do. But I’m not sure what the origins of it are.” [the report the California AG wants to require the CNN divestment] is. We expect more opinions that may or may not be tied to the truth, but we are simply focused on a fair but firm and comprehensive antitrust analysis, and we will make a decision in the coming weeks.
Soboroff then asked, “To what extent has what’s happening at CBS in terms of CBS News and the editorial independence of that organization affected the way you view CNN that may be under the same umbrella?” That’s a reference to David Ellison’s installation of Free Press founder Bari Weiss, editor-in-chief at CBS News. Weiss’ disruptive tenure at the helm of the news division included a dramatic leadership change at “60 Minutes” and the firing of correspondent Scott Pelley, who claimed, among other things, that Weiss “wanted to put a thumb on the scale for the presidential version of events that I felt was a level of political influence I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News.” (In response to Pelley’s claims, CBS News said Weiss had made suggestions about a specific Pelley story that was part of “the editorial back-and-forth” that “had no political motivation and were suggested solely to make the piece as strong, fair and accurate as possible.”)
Bonta responded: “You know, that’s something we should be concerned about. We’re not naive. We see what’s happening in the world. And I’ve always been a supporter of the independent free press as a critical guardrail in our democracy. That should remain that way. But our analysis is a straight-up antitrust analysis. That’s our approach. That’s our focus. We’ll do an antitrust analysis here and make a decision based on that analysis.”
Meanwhile, the British government announced Tuesday that it will likely intervene in the Paramount-WBD deal. One of the reasons Lisa Nandy, the British Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, cited in a written statement to Parliament was “the need for, so far as is reasonable and practicable, a sufficient plurality of views in the news media in every news media market” in Britain.
The deal between Paramount and Warner Bros. was previously approved by the US Department of Justice, without imposing any requirements for divestitures or other concessions on the part of Paramount Skydance. The merger has also received regulatory approval in China, Australia, Germany, France and Saudi Arabia. The The European Union will reportedly give the green light if certain “remedies” are devisedsuch as ending the Paramount-Universal distribution joint venture known as UIP.
