Of course while the deal might make sense on paper for the enormous entities involved, real life isn’t lived on paper, and there will be tangible consequences for the employees, consumers, and the world at large. Workers within Paramount were already staring down the barrel of likely layoffs as the combining of two companies made multiple jobs redundant. Now those same workers will have to endure two acquisitions. The aforementioned Stephen Colbert situation hammers home just how expendable anyone can become in these situations.
Then there’s the rest of us. What does a world of a combined Paramount/Warner Bros. look like for us? Not great, Bob! Once the FCC decides a deal is in the public interest (which: lol), the following brands will be owned by the same entity: Paramount Pictures, Paramount Television Studios, Paramount+, BET, Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, Showtime, CBS (and all affiliates), Paramount+, Warner Bros. Entertainment, DC Studios, Fandango, all Turner properties, New Line Cinema, The CW, HBO, HBO Max, and CNN.
While that list is big and overwhelming, it’s the way in which the informational landscape will get smaller that will be more concerning. Should this acquisition go through, all of the biggest brands in traditional film and television media (NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, Warner Bros. Studios, Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Company, Columbia Pictures) will essentially be consolidated down to an ownership of four (Paramount/Warner, Disney, NBCUniversal, Sony). From there it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump to two. And while you’re on two, you might as well bring things down to one.
This narrowing of diversity and competition is a surefire way to make art worse, plain and simple. Even more troubling, however, is the ways in which it could curtail social, cultural, and political dissent. Both Warner Bros. and Paramount have their own news and informational products in the form of CNN and CBS News. Taking one of those off the board via consolidation is another brutal blow to already gut-shot media landscape. And that’s even assuming that any combined entity would still be invested in any level of media independence and sound journalism, which recent evidence suggests that Paramount Skydance is not.
All for a Harry Potter/Star Trek crossover that nobody asked for.
