Paramount Still Reaching for WBD as CBS Misplays Colbert-Talarico Interview
Paramount WBD merger talks continue even as the Ellisons’ CBS triggered the Streisand effect with some clumsy censorship.
The crisis of credibility faced by Western elites as they try and fail to patch over the bursting abscess that is the Epstein files release heralds something much more profound: potential systemic collapse.
The decision by the Ellison-owned Paramount and/or Trump’s FCC to block Texas US Senate candidate James Talarico’s appearance on the Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show has royally backfired, if the goal was to stunt James Talarico’s candidacy that is:
Let’s talk about the ongoing merger attempts first.
WBD’s Board Allows Paramount One More Round
Warner Bros. Discovery said on Tuesday that it would restart the deal talks with Paramount Skydance that it ended in December, giving the company another chance at besting Netflix for a deal. Paramount will have until Feb. 23 to negotiate its best and final offer.
Warner Bros. Discovery last year rejected Paramount’s offer to buy the entire company for $108 billion in favor of a deal to sell only its streaming and studios business to Netflix for $83 billion. Warner Bros. Discovery said at the time that Netflix offered the better deal for shareholders. Paramount disagreed and quickly made its case to shareholders through a hostile bid.
In the roughly two months since then, Paramount has amended its offer twice, each time addressing some of the concerns that Warner Bros. Discovery’s board had raised. Paramount’s chief executive, David Ellison, has also raised questions about the Netflix bid, including whether its deal can pass regulatory scrutiny.
CNN’s Brian Stelter had Paramount’s prickly response:
“Although the Board’s actions are unusual, Paramount is nonetheless prepared to engage in good faith and constructive discussions. At the same time, we will continue to advance our tender offer, maintain our solicitation in opposition to the inferior Netflix merger, and proceed with our intention to nominate a slate of directors at the upcoming WBD annual meeting.”
The news has the prediction markets revising their bets on Parmount WBD & Netflix:
Netflix fired back about Paramount WBD, per Deadline:
“Throughout the robust and highly competitive strategic review process, Netflix has consistently taken a constructive, responsive approach with WBD, in stark contrast to Paramount Skydance. While we are confident that our transaction provides superior value and certainty, we recognize the ongoing distraction for WBD stockholders and the broader entertainment industry caused by PSKY’s antics. Accordingly, we granted WBD a narrow seven-day waiver of certain obligations under our merger agreement to allow them to engage with PSKY to fully and finally resolve this matter,” Netflix said.
“This does not change the fact that we have the only signed, board-recommended agreement with WBD, and ours is the only certain path to delivering value to WBD’s stockholders,” it insisted, zeroing in on regulatory approvals.
“Netflix is confident that our transaction, a largely vertical merger of complementary assets, has a clear path to timely regulatory approval,” it said. Netflix and WBD have each submitted their Hart-Scott-Rodino filings and are “engaged constructively” with competition authorities globally including the DOJ, state Attorneys General, the European Commission, and the UK Competition and Markets Authority.
“By contrast, PSKY has repeatedly mischaracterized the regulatory review process by suggesting its proposal will sail through, misleading WBD stockholders about the real risk of their regulatory challenges around the world. WBD stockholders should not be misled into thinking that PSKY has an easier or faster path to regulatory approval – it does not,” said the streamer led by Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters.
It ridiculed Paramount for publicizing “routine checkpoints” to exaggerate “progress.” “For example, PSKY cited securing German FDI clearance on January 27, 2026, as evidence of their ‘regulatory certainty.’ In fact, Netflix received German FDI clearance on the very same day.”
It anticipated scrutiny on foreign funding behind PSKY’s bid – namely the Middle East sovereign wealth funds that will be passive investors. It insisted regulators will focus on horizontal overlaps (two of the five major Hollywood studios, two major news networks) and the impact on competition, job losses, reduced output, and downward pressure on wages for film and television workers –- with pain set to result from the high debt of the combined company.
Matt Stoller has some analysis of what’s going on at BIG:
…a contact let me on to something odd about the Paramount approach: the company says it has mostly completed the extensive legal paperwork necessary to acquire WBD. And that’s both very weird and very important, for reasons I’ll get into, because it suggests Paramount’s people believe the fix is in, on their behalf.
…
The company’s main antitrust lawyer is a savvy and cynical operator named Makan Delrahim. Delrahim is a close confidante of David Ellison, the son of Oracle founder and billionaire Larry Ellison, who is financing the deal. And Delrahim’s goal is to get the deal through before enforcers know what hit them.
…
Delrahim knows how this process works, and so he’s had Paramount do something unusual for an acquiring party. His company has filed an HSR form without signing a merger deal or even winning the bid for the company with whom it is trying to combine. And not only has Paramount filed an HSR form, it has already “substantially” fulfilled the second request for information from the DOJ. That’s astonishing. It means Paramount paid tens of millions to lawyers to comb through documents on a rush job. It also likely implies they did no negotiations whatsoever with the government, and just gave them everything they asked for. I’m told that is unheard of.Why take such cumbersome and risky steps if Paramount is not even assured victory in the bidding war? Well, there’s a specific timeline involved if they make a cash tender offer. If the Netflix deal falls apart and Paramount wins the bidding war, then the antitrust enforcers have just fifteen days to rush a complaint out to a court to ask to pause the merger.
This news got the business/gossip press a twittering.
Charles Gasparino of Fox had a savvy take on Paramount WBD with lots of praise for WBD CEO David Zaslav who is set to cash out huge after an otherwise disastrous tenure at the company he formed in 2022 when Discover acquired the storied Warner Brothers:
I’ve covered a lot of deals, but this one takes gamesmanship to another level, and Zas is playing it perfectly. Zas knows Paramount (PSKY) needs what he has; he also knows Netflix needs a growth strategy and
WBD is the perfect vehicle were it not for the regulatory uncertainty and it is tremendous.The renegotiation with PSKY–if it happens and most think it will — isnt the result of any of these activist investors you keep reading about. It’s about a perfect storm for Zas that he helped stoke: He never cut off PSKY despite the appearance of bad blood. He embraced Netflix but I know he knows it is facing a wall of uncertainty about getting its deal through Trump land.
PSKY needs WBD or its future is shaky at best, and Netflix has convinced itself it just cant walk away at this point even if everyone I know inside the administration thinks the co is significantly downplaying its regulatory hurdles.
Taken together and Zas he can play a little chicken to get his final number up between $31-$33 a share, taking the valuation of his company to close to $90 billion (it was barely $30B when this began in September). He is essentially threatening both sides that he is just fine if has to walk away from $NTFLX and running a largely debt free studio and streaming service w $5.8 billion breakup in cash from Netflix, while telling PSKY the time is running out on your own melting ice cube of a media company.
Aged pop-rocker Paul Anka of all people had a Paramount WBD take so savvy that Deadline recycled some quotes from their recent interview him for a new story:
Cripple the business? The motion picture business has been totally run out of the state of California. There’s no film business as we knew it, it doesn’t exist. It’s over.
I was with [David] Zaslav at his house recently, he threw a party for me when HBO released the documentary. Very brilliantly, they created a bidding war. John Malone is brilliant.
Now, it’s probably going to get held up in court two years because the Ellisons are not going to let it go easily. You’ve got Trump behind them, and the Arab money. Who knows?
Ted Sarandos (Co-CEO of Netflix) is very close with Zaslav. Sometimes these guys do each other a favor, it’s an old Vegas trick.
You want to sell a hotel? You go to your buddy and say, give me an offer. Just pretend you’re in the game. And they float it out there and it starts this bidding war. I still think it’s going to be Paramount that winds up with it.
Ted and Netflix have never stepped out and purchased anything, it has all been built in-house. They’ve never been buyers, and Ted has been thumbing his nose at the theatrical business for years. He hasn’t made a lot of friends among the exhibition people.
But things are going to change regardless of who gets it. You’ll have less places to go to with product. We’ll be down to three places, maybe. We know that the overseas sales are very important and they’re making films everywhere; in Atlanta, Canada. It concerns me because we don’t have the film base and that the Hollywood we grew up in, it’s over.
The notion that the Ellisons are moneyed rubes getting played by Hollywood sharpies in the Paramount WBD merger talks is only reinforced by their (mis)management of CBS.
Giving Talarico and Colbert a Big Boost
The most recent, and most high profile, blunder by CBS was walking into this sh*tstorm even as new Paramount WBD talks kicked off, per Axios:
Late-night host Stephen Colbert said Monday evening that CBS barred him from airing an interview with James Talarico, a Texas Democrat running for Senate, citing a recent federal directive.
CBS has faced mounting scrutiny in recent months that its news arm and parent company, Paramount Skydance, are succumbing to pressure from President Trump’s administration.
Colbert said on air that CBS’ lawyers told his show that it could not have Talarico, a Texas state representative, on the broadcast.
“Then I was told, in some uncertain terms, that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on,” he said. “And because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”
“FCC you,” Colbert said, calling out FCC chairman Brendan Carr directly. He added that Carr is “motivated by partisan purposes.”
The FCC did not immediately respond to Axios’ request for comment on Tuesday.
However, CBS said in a statement that the network did not prohibit the show from broadcasting the interview.
“The show was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled,” the network said.
The Streisand effect kicked in hard once Colbert made it a controversy, rebounding to Talarico’s benefit, and possibly hurting the Paramount WBD merger.
The Late Show has been averaging around 2.3 million viewers in February, but the Talarico interview has 5.7 million views (and counting) on YouTube and another 12 million views on Talarico’s X.com account.
I’ll have a little more on the Texas Senate race and why it matters in a bit, but first let finish the Parmount WBD section with a review some of the other Paramount CBS own goals.
What Bari Weiss Is Pouring Out at CBS Ain’t Going Down Smooth
Even as Paramount WBD is trying to get something going, their golden girl at CBS keeps getting in the way.
I’ve posted repeatedly about the struggles of Bari Weiss, the Ellisons’ choice to run CBS news (links at bottom of post) but let’s run through the latest.
She’s triggered a major talent exodus, per Variety:
A significant chunk of the production team behind “CBS Evening News” has opted to take buyouts that were offered in late January, according to three people familiar with the matter, the latest sign of ambivalence by journalists at CBS News regarding the plans of the unit’s leader, Bari Weiss. She recently articulated a new vision that would place more focus by the Paramount Skydance operation on streaming video and stories that are “differentiated, that are things you can’t get anywhere else.”
Approximately 11 members out of a production staff of about 40 have opted to leave, according to these people. Some of the departures come from among the youngest members of the CBS News staff, two of these people say, a dynamic that has raised concern about the ability to bring new perspectives to familiar routines. At least two employees taking the buyouts, however, were veteran producers, who played significant roles in getting “CBS Evening News” out each weekday.
The exodus puts a new spotlight on CBS News under Weiss, whose experience is largely tied to opinion writing and not the ins and outs of newsgathering. Weiss’ lack of knowledge has resulted in several errors since her arrival in October, after Paramount bought her conservative-opinion site The Free Press for $150 million. There have been entanglements with “60 Minutes”; exits by senior executives; and a rough start for Dokoupil’s new tenure at “CBS Evening News” following comments he made online about his intentions for his new job.
And the exodus includes superstar Vanderbilt heirs too, also per Variety:
Anderson Cooper will exit CBS News‘ “60 Minutes” after nearly 20 years of contributing to the program, according to a person familiar with his thinking…
“Being a correspondent at ’60 Minutes’ has been one of the highlights of my career. I got to tell amazing stories, and work with some of the best producers, editors and camera crews in the business,” Cooper said in a statement. “For nearly twenty years, I’ve been able to balance my jobs at CNN and CBS, but I have little kids now and I want to spend as much time with them as possible, while they want to spend time with me.”
Cooper was said to be in negotiations with CBS about a renewal in recent weeks, but opted to put more of his focus on activities at CNN.
Business Insider has a fun round-up of media insiders’ reactions to Cooper’s exit. TL,DR: No one quits these jobs to spend more time with their family and Bari Weiss is overseeing a debacle.
Even worse, the narrative that the Ellisons are attempting a major takeover of American media on behalf of Trump (somehow the Ellisons’ loyalty to Israel is rarely mentioned) has entered the mainstream consciousness. See this tweet on Paramount WBD from former FTC member Alvaro Bedoya:
Johnathan Alter has the libs riled up with his (possibly accurate) conspiraversy vision of what’s going on:
So here’s what’s going to happen now: Netflix has agreed, under pressure, to let Paramount SkyDance have several days of negotiations with Warner Discovery, whose board wanted to go with Netflix. But in the next few days David Ellison and Larry Ellison will sweeten the bid. And then, from what I’ve heard from very good sources, the Justice Department will announce what Republican senators have already hinted at, which is that they will block a merger with Netflix on antitrust grounds. International regulators may say the same, ending Netflix’s bid.
That would be good: either of these mergers would be terrible for the creative community, workers and the public. But the demise of the Netflix deal would make it easier for the Ellisons and Paramount to take over Warner Discovery, which would then give Bari Weiss and company control not just of CBS News, but of CNN and HBO (Bill Maher and John Oliver would have to go elsewhere). Then you would have a situation where CBS, CNN, and Fox, not to mention TikTok, would all be under the control of Donald Trump.
Again, no mention of Israel.
I imagine the MSM-only news follower must find it kind of mysterious why Bari Weiss still has so much support in institutional and elite circle, like this:
Except she’s so incompetent that they had to cancel her gig, from Daily Beast:
A talk on the “future of journalism” by the editor-in-chief of CBS News was declared “canceled” by its organizers Wednesday.
The lecture from Bari Weiss, 41, at the University of California, Los Angeles, was scheduled to take place on Feb. 27. The event was part of a memorial lecture series honoring journalist Daniel Pearl, whose death at the hands of militants in Karachi made him a symbol of press freedom.
The cancellation notice was posted on a UCLA website and detailed that current ticket holders for the event would receive a full reimbursement.
A source close to Weiss said that there had been a “scheduling conflict” and that the speech would take place at an unspecified date in the future.
Weiss may have been hired to destroy CBS News but I’m not sure the Ellisons’ understand what they’re doing to the brand equity and earning potential of their news crown jewel.
Time will tell if Hasbara Media Inc. manages to build a sustainable empire or not.
But, let’s wrap with a little more about the Texas race for US Senate.
Texas Could Flip the Senate Majority
As far-fetched as it may seem, the Texas Senate race is THE marquee race upon which control of the upper house depends.
The Democratic primary is also serving as a referendum of the nihilistic politics of “Dark Woke” as represented by US Congressional Rep. Jasmine Crockett, the Republican Party’s preferred Democratic nominee for the race.
She’s running against State Senator Talarico for the Dem Party nomination.
Crockett’s trash-talking persona has succeeded in convincing the MSM that she represents a “Democratic Tea Party” or “progressive firebrand“, despite her votes for military funding for Israel and the campaign money she’s taken from tech oligarch Marc Andreessen, the Winklevoss cryptobros, Blackrock’s PAC, Lockheed Martin’s PAC, two cryptocurrency-funded super PACs and “a fleet of other business groups.”
The polling data (such as it is, take with heaps of salt) seems to show that Crockett has the backing of Black voters and older voters (aka the Biden/Cuomo coalition) rather than Latins and younger voters (aka the Bernie Sanders coalition):
The campaign has certainly featured a lot of #KHive type action which is always a threat to tear apart the fragile Dem multi-ethnic coalition:
Naturally, Zackory Kirk was part of the Dem Party Chorus/1630 dark money program. Smart investing by the establishment.
Joshua A. Cohen at the Ettingermentum Newsletter has more analysis on the importance of the race and the Jasmine Crockett factor:
For the Lone Star State’s long-beleaguered liberals, the stakes are extraordinarily high. Thanks to yet another rough Senate map and Donald Trump’s historic collapse in support among Latino voters, the result this November in Texas is very likely to be what determines which party wins the Senate this year. After decades of low-energy primaries and celebrity politics, Texas Democrats now need to make an exceptionally important choice, one not too dissimilar in its stakes from a presidential primary.
…this race appeared to offer something far realer: an actual, no-bullshit look into how real post-2024 Democratic voters approached highly important races when provided with a wide variety of different tendencies to choose from. And while left-of-center discourse remained stuck on 2016-era progressive-vs.-centrist ideological debates, I saw something different brewing in Texas…
This was the rise of Dallas’s Jasmine Crockett: second-term House backbencher, pro-establishment liberal, and one of the defining social media phenoms of Trump 2.0.
…
When she officially entered the primary in December, the party’s Senate nominee from the year prior dropped out on the same day. Nonpartisan polling already had her with an outright majority of the vote against her sole remaining opponent, all before she had raised a single dollar, given a single speech or aired a single ad.
…
(Crockett) appeared to be easily wiping the floor with all of the other post-Biden liberal philosophies on offer, whether they be Colin Allred’s D.C.-directed centrism or James Talarico’s Bernie-lite Instagram politics.It was only when she actually entered the race that things started to go wrong.
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Where the story back in November was the rise of a nihilistic liberal anti-politics, the story since then is how that brand of politics has met its limits.
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Very unexpectedly and quite exceptionally, liberal content consumers were more willing to give her their hard-earned money just as a symbolic statement of support than they are to actually back a real, meaningful campaign. When I wrote earlier about Democrats making a distinction between cheerleaders and actual leaders, this is what it looks like, and it’s a dire sign for both her and anyone else who seeks to build a real, viable national political career solely off of what plays well on social media.
Just like with Paramount WBD, time will tell how the Texas Senate race shakes out, but for those dismissing the possibility of a Democratic win in Texas, check out these early vote numbers from Tarrant County, the most conservative urban county in Texas:
Tarrant, home of Fort Worth aka “Cowtown”, is the same county where Dems recently pulled off a shocking special election win that saw a phenomenal 31 point swing away from the GOP from 2024 results.
And all of this is happening while the Interregnum of Unreality continues, while we await the seemingly inevitable pop of the AI bubble and a potential war with Iran that will accelerate Trump’s golden march to ruin.
Hang tough out there.
Originally published at Naked Capitalism.