David Ellison defends Paramount-Warner merger, says CNN is real target of lawsuits

Breaking silence

After weeks of legal battles, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison publicly addressed the $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery in a New York Times op-ed on August 4. He said he had stayed quiet because "anyone who oversees a news organization... shouldn't put a finger on the scale," but that silence allowed others to "write my story for me." The op-ed is his first direct comment on the deal since 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America filed antitrust suits in July.

I believe this fight is not really about market share.... The issue is whether I can be trusted as a steward of Warner's CNN.... When it comes to our news operations, I do not aspire to lead these companies to bend their newsrooms to my views.

Market share and competition

Ellison argued that the combined company would hold less than 20% of U.S. television watch time, a figure that drops to around 13% when YouTube is included. Over the past 12 months, it would account for 18% of the domestic box office, and 22% on average over the past two years. "Those are not the numbers of a company that can dictate what audiences watch or what writers get paid," he wrote. He contrasted this with tech giants Netflix, Amazon, and Apple, whose resources "dwarf ours." The deal has already been approved by regulators in 65 countries, including the U.S. Department of Justice, the European Union, and China.

Ellison also pledged to scale up traditional production, promising 30 theatrical films and 170 television series annually, backed by more than $30 billion in annual content investment. He said this is vital to sustain creative workers against platforms driven by engagement algorithms, though he acknowledged that "nobody can dictate what audiences will love."

The CNN question

The core of the opposition, Ellison contended, is not market concentration but his stewardship of CNN. He sought to reassure critics by stating he has "regularly voted for candidates of both parties" and holds both conservative and liberal views. He insisted that CNN and CBS News would remain "based on facts and truth" and "tell it straight down the middle."

Great news organizations like CNN and CBS News are here to tell it straight down the middle. That requires newsrooms that reflect the whole world, not one side of it.

Under Ellison, CBS News has already seen changes, including the appointment of Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief and a $16 million settlement with the Trump administration over a 60 Minutes interview. The Writers Guild of America and state attorneys general argue the merger would harm competition and writers' opportunities.

Legal and political maneuvering

The legal fight escalated in July when California Attorney General Rob Bonta, leading 11 other states, sued to block the merger under the Clayton Act. The WGA filed its own suit a day later. While international regulators have cleared the transaction, domestic proceedings are frozen. A federal judge is expected to set a trial date either later this year or in early 2027; one report says the trial has been pushed to June 2027.

TKO Group boss Ari Emanuel, appearing on CNBC, suggested an "editorial board" be placed over CNN to calm concerns about Larry Ellison's influence. Emanuel had previously called the lawsuits "absurd" in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, drawing criticism for not disclosing his own financial ties to the Ellisons through a UFC rights deal.

A personal stake

Ellison's op-ed also revealed a personal side, describing his lifelong love of film and citing his own track record: "G.I. Joe: Retaliation met financial expectations, Top Gun: Maverick exceeded them and Terminator: Dark Fate fell short." He pointed to a Gallup poll showing only 28% of Americans trust the news, the lowest ever recorded, and said the industry must look inward. "Our obligation is to look inward and say: We can do better," he wrote.