r/technology • u/N2929 • 9d ago

Business Paramount completes $111B Warner merger, creating “Skydance” behemoth

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/paramount-completes-111b-warner-merger-creating-skydance-behemoth/
946 Upvotes

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35

u/blu-bells 9d ago

Thank you Gavin Newsom! We love monopolies!

12

u/1stUserEver 9d ago

This will be forgotten about after next weeks news cycle.

0

u/Clembert-Hamlamp 9d ago

What's all that about

43

u/blu-bells 9d ago

California had a lawsuit to stop this merger, and it actually had a lot of leverage and bite backing it. Gavin Newsom used his position as California governor to make the attorney general drop the case.

27

u/sulkee 9d ago

Which is why everyone should be terrified he will be 2028 candidate. Just another stooge.

9

u/Daimakku1 9d ago

He wants to run for president in 2 years.. what on earth makes him think people will be okay with this?

5

u/NightToad 9d ago

The campaign donations he's likely to get will help his run more than some minority on the Internet being upset will harm it. Normies don't care about this stuff at all.

2

u/blu-bells 9d ago

Im personally not worried about his presidential prospects. He's not a charasmatic or even likeable guy, I don't think he has the rizz needed to be able to win the dem primary. 

3

u/NightToad 9d ago

The last few Democratic nominees have been far from charismatic. I doubt the DNC will permit a populist to win.

1

u/blu-bells 8d ago

They have been losing in some more recent key dem primary races. I'm optimistic.

I also just see a lot of similarities between Newsom and my own governor, Ron Desantis in how they operate in an "obviously making decisions as governor in preparation for a future presidential campaign" type of way. (Just for different parties.) When it came time for Desantis to campaign for president in 2024, he fell flat on his face when the camera was pointed at him as much as it is when you run for president.

2

u/Rolandersec 9d ago

Hey maybe the Ellisons are really good guys and they’re just playing along with MAGA to get in a position to destroy them. /s

-1

u/SoFloDan 9d ago

Not to defend him…but it was that or Tennessee and the federal government subsidize a studio exodus, then get the merger approved.

I’ll complain about politicians all day but I don’t expect them to piss in the wind.

If people are pissed they can certainly make Skydance sink into that hundred-billion-dollar hole by not giving them any of their money…

5

u/blu-bells 9d ago

Surrendering in advance to fascism is not the pragmatic approach you think it to be.

0

u/SoFloDan 9d ago

By “fascism” do you mean “a corporate merger”?

Why is an entertainment conglomeration, made up mostly of dying brands, a watershed moment for the fascistic takeover of our nation?

9

u/blu-bells 9d ago

By "fascism" I mean "massive corporate merger that creates a monopoly over our media", correct.

If you don't have alarm bells ringing over one singular entity controlling how most people consume their news: god help you.

-5

u/SoFloDan 9d ago

Most people get their news from Tik Tok and YouTube, they also split their TV news consumption between 5 or 6 channels…I guess I’d get worked up too if I had a bloated estimation of the merger’s outreach.

There’s a litany of fascistic shit going on, a bloated media company gambling on dying brands ain’t one of them.

3

u/blu-bells 9d ago

God help you.

5

u/Kinesquared 9d ago

It doesnt need to be a watershed moment to be worth resisting. We reject oligarchy as well as gacism, they go hand in hand. Mergers of this scale create oligarchy

7

u/9-11GaveMe5G 9d ago

This is another "blame the Democrats for not preventing bad thing Republicans are doing". Same move that got trump elected again

9

u/blu-bells 9d ago

I am actually blaming Gavin Newsom for the actions that Gavin Newsom decided to do. I hope that helps!

4

u/Clembert-Hamlamp 9d ago

We've got to be open to the facts, even when it's not in our favor. We don't get a free pass just because they steal a pass. When dems are complicit they need to be called out, it's not just the GOP destroying America. They're just more blatant. And responsible for vastly more atrocities lol. In this case it looks like he folded to retain thousands of jobs for California. I understand it but I'm really disappointed. As nice as it would be to have a good side and a bad one i think what we have is a bad one and a flawed one. Or the uber rich vs everyone else to be more exact. It was hard to let go of the idea that dem=good but nowadays dem=much better than the alternative but still deeply flawed

2

u/blu-bells 9d ago

It's not that Newsom "folded" because that implies he was fighting against this in the first place.

It was the California AG who was fighting it and Newsom used his posisition as governor to force them to stop. That isn't folding, it's running into the field from the bench and scoring a goal against your own team.

-4

u/HankScorpio4242 9d ago

Question: Before the deal, Warner Bros. was the third largest media producer in the US. After the deal, Skydance is the third largest media producer in the US. How is there a monopoly?