{"id":315171,"date":"2026-04-20T12:00:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T11:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=315171"},"modified":"2026-04-18T08:39:47","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T07:39:47","slug":"paramounts-purchase-of-cnn-heralds-a-new-trump-friendly-media-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/04\/paramounts-purchase-of-cnn-heralds-a-new-trump-friendly-media-empire\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount\u2019s Purchase of CNN Heralds a New Trump-Friendly Media Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

17 Apr 2026\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0The ultra-wealthy have long leveraged their capital to build sprawling media empires that narrow our public range of debate (FAIR.org<\/b>, 6\/1\/87<\/a>). But Paramount Skydance<\/b>\u2018s winning bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery <\/b>(WBD<\/b>) marks a major milestone in media monopolization that, if successful, will further expand Trump-allied tech moguls Larry and David Ellison\u2019s burgeoning power over US news and entertainment media.<\/p>\n

Even before a winner was announced, the bidding war<\/a> among Paramount<\/b>, Netflix<\/b> and Comcast<\/b> to take over WBD<\/b> had attracted intense scrutiny, as the acquisition would not only confer lucrative franchises and a huge advantage in the streaming wars, but also control of major media outlets, including CNN<\/b>, consolidating a greater swath of the media ecosystem under a single owner.<\/p>\n

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\"Hollywood<\/p>\n

The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong> (2\/27\/26<\/a>) reported Paramount<\/strong>\u2018s disclosure that funding for its WBD<\/strong> takeover \u201cmay include other strategic and financial partners\u201d who go unnamed. The Reporter<\/strong> noted that \u201cprevious bids included funding from Middle East sovereign wealth funds, Tencent<\/strong> and Jared Kushner\u2019s Affinity Partners<\/strong>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

<\/main><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The fallout of the deal was destined to enhance the power of an already-sizable media behemoth, no matter which corporate giant won. On February 27, 2026, after a series of hostile takeover bids<\/a> by Paramount<\/b> that disrupted what seemed to be a done deal<\/a> between Netflix<\/b> and WBD<\/b>, Netflix<\/b> abruptly pulled out<\/a> of the struggle for ownership, stating that it would not be matching Paramount<\/b>\u2019s higher offer.<\/p>\n

The current Paramount<\/b> offer is valued at $31 per share and, including WBD<\/b>\u2019s debt load, amounts to a grand total<\/a> of roughly $111 billion.<\/p>\n

Father-and-son moguls<\/b><\/h3>\n
\"New<\/p>\n

Alex Shephard (<\/span><\/span>New Republic<\/strong>, 10\/27\/25<\/a>): \u201cThe administration will use its antitrust power to ensure that it gets the owner of Warner Bros.<\/strong> that it wants: the Ellison family.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Steering this deal, and Paramount<\/b>\u2019s rapid expansion, are Larry and David Ellison, father-and-son moguls who, in just a single year, have parlayed their tech fortune into a colossal media empire. Larry Ellison, billionaire co-founder of Oracle<\/b>, has bankrolled Paramount<\/b>\u2019s ballooning growth, which is overseen by his son David. The pair are notoriously close to Donald Trump, and have already weaponized their newfound media control to shift public discourse to the right (FAIR.org<\/b>, 9\/9\/25<\/a>, 9\/19\/25<\/a>, 10\/9\/25<\/a>, 11\/6\/25<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In August 2025, the Ellisons\u2019 Skydance Media<\/b> acquired Paramount<\/b>, owner of CBS<\/b>, and spearheaded a blatant ideological overhaul of the news network (FAIR.org<\/b>, 7\/24\/25<\/a>). This MAGA-friendly transformation has been aided by Ellison-appointed editor-in-chief Bari Weiss<\/a>, who had previously made a name for herself as an \u201canti-woke\u201d crusader and founder of the right-wing media company Free Press<\/b>. Weiss has been at the forefront of such decisions as canceling<\/a> the Late Show With Stephen Colbert<\/b>, pulling<\/a> a 60 Minutes<\/b> episode that criticized the Trump administration\u2019s mistreatment of Venezuelan migrants, and promoting<\/a> Tony Dokoupil to primetime anchor, where he promptly gave War Secretary Pete Hegseth an extended and uncritical platform.<\/p>\n

Less than six months after the closure of the Paramount<\/b> deal, in January 2026, Larry Ellison finalized a deal with TikTok<\/b><\/a>, which sold 80% of its US operations to an investor consortium that includes Oracle<\/b>, and left Ellison with a majority stake in TikTok<\/b>\u2019s US operations.<\/p>\n

Since then, a number of changes have been implemented that reek of censorship and surveillance. For one, TikTok<\/b> immediately altered its privacy policy to permit more extensive data collection<\/a>, including tracking user location.<\/p>\n

There have also been accusations of content suppression<\/a>. This became a prominent conversation after the murder of Alex Pretti, as many users reported that they were unable to upload<\/a> anti-ICE posts and that, if uploaded, their content was receiving unusually low engagement. Researchers found there was a site-wide outage at the time, but they pointed out that because TikTok<\/b> isn\u2019t transparent with its data or its algorithm, there\u2019s no way to confirm it\u2019s not shadowbanning content (NPR<\/b>, 2\/4\/26<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Now, on the precipice of acquiring WBD<\/b>, with a targeted completion date of September 30, 2026, the Ellisons are slated to have massively expanded their entertainment, media and tech empire in barely over a year. If the deal moves forward, the family would gain control of a vast portfolio spanning legacy media and Big Tech\u2014including film, news, television, sports and social media\u2014granting them substantial influence over how the world is seen and understood.<\/p>\n

Shuffling the media oligarchy<\/b><\/h3>\n
\"Top<\/a><\/p>\n

In FAIR\u2019s recent online news ownership study (2\/3\/26)<\/a>, WBD<\/strong> took the third spot and Paramount\/Skydance<\/strong> the 16th. By taking over WBD<\/strong>, the Ellisons would vault into third, just behind Rupert Murdoch\u2019s dynasty.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What does this look like in terms of numbers? According to Pew<\/a>, 37% of adults in the US use TikTok<\/b>. Pew notes that \u201cjust over half of US adults who use TikTok<\/b> (55%) say they regularly get news there. That works out to 20% of all US adults,\u201d or about 54 million people. Given TikTok<\/b>\u2019s expanding reach as a news source, the Ellisons\u2019 ownership of the platform is especially significant.<\/p>\n

When factoring in CBS<\/b> and the additional audience that would accompany an acquisition of CNN<\/b>, the scope of Ellison-owned media widens even more. As FAIR noted in a recent study (2\/3\/26)<\/a>, the digital reach alone of these networks is considerable\u2014from December 2024 to November 2025, CBS<\/b> and CNN<\/b> attracted 905 million and 4 billion views, respectively. If we use these numbers to project a future in which the Ellisons control CNN<\/b>, their annual online news view count would be around 5 billion.<\/p>\n

The actual broadcast and cable TV viewership of CBS<\/b> and CNN<\/b> adds relatively little to the Ellisons\u2019 reach: In a recent week in March, CNN<\/b> averaged 751,000<\/a> total primetime viewers, while the CBS Evening News<\/b> typically had an audience of 4.3 million<\/a> in the first quarter of 2026.<\/p>\n

While the Ellisons\u2019 rapidly consolidating media dynasty is not unprecedented, these developments have reconfigured the media oligarchy, partially displacing established players and amassing holdings that extend beyond traditional cable and print news into digital and technology media.<\/p>\n

Revisiting FAIR\u2019s ranking of digital media owners<\/a> by site traffic, an Ellison acquisition of WBD<\/b> would catapult them to the No. 3 spot, driven by CNN<\/b>\u2019s more than 4 billion annual visits, placing them just behind the No. 1 Ochs-Sulzberger family of the New York Times<\/b> and the No. 2 Murdoch family.<\/p>\n

However, unlike with the Ochs-Sulzbergers, the Ellison media empire would also translate to a strong broadcast and cable news presence, as CNN <\/b>is regarded as one of the \u201cBig Three<\/a>\u201d cable news channels, generally trailing only Fox News <\/b>and Comcast<\/b>\u2019s MS NOW <\/b>(formerly MSNBC<\/b>).<\/p>\n

And, although the Murdochs wield considerable power in cable, digital and print news, the Ellison portfolio expands into the social media realm as well. This is notable considering the ever-increasing number of Americans that rely on social media for news. According to Pew<\/a>, 53% of US adults get news from social media \u201csometimes\u201d or \u201coften.\u201d Facebook<\/b> and YouTube<\/b> are the most popular sites for news, while 20% get news \u201cregularly\u201d from Instagram<\/b> and TikTok<\/b>.<\/p>\n

While the Ellisons do not lead in social media news ownership\u2014that distinction belongs to Mark Zuckerberg of Meta<\/b> (which owns Facebook<\/b> and Instagram<\/b>) and Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google<\/b> (which owns YouTube<\/b>)\u2014their media empire, like the Murdochs\u2019, ranks prominently across multiple platforms.<\/p>\n

Corrupted regulation<\/b><\/h3>\n
\"WSJ:<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/strong> (12\/8\/25<\/a>) reported that \u201cDavid Ellison offered assurances to Trump administration officials that if he bought Warner, he\u2019d make sweeping changes to CNN<\/strong>\u2026. Trump has told people close to him that he wants new ownership of CNN<\/strong> as well as changes to CNN<\/strong> programming.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Paramount<\/b>\/WBD<\/b> deal has been unanimously approved<\/a> by the boards of both companies. The next phase is a WBD<\/b> shareholders vote<\/a>, which is scheduled to take place on April 23, 2026, and is expected to move forward without complications.<\/p>\n

Reuters <\/b>(2\/27\/26<\/a>) reports that approval in the EU is not anticipated to pose a significant hurdle, given that a combined Paramount<\/b>\/WBD <\/b>entity would hold less than a 20% market share across European markets.<\/p>\n

In the US, the merger would require clearance from both the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which are both controlled by Trump appointees. The anti\u2013public interest antics of FCC chair Brendan Carr are already well-documented by FAIR (2\/26\/25<\/a>, 4\/2\/26<\/a>; CounterSpin<\/b>, 4\/4\/25<\/a>), and newly appointed Attorney General Todd Blanche<\/a> appears to have been promoted solely for his unwavering deference to Trump.<\/p>\n

DoJ official Omeed Assefi, himself a Trump appointee<\/a>, has insisted that the transaction would \u201cabsolutely not<\/a>\u201d be fast-tracked for political reasons. Yet this claim has been loudly contradicted by statements from Trump\u2019s inner circle. For instance, Hegseth<\/a> recently said, \u201cThe sooner David Ellison takes over that network [CNN<\/b>], the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

A lawsuit filed against Paramount<\/strong> and assorted executives by a former consultant alleges that the elder Ellison was told by Trump, \u201cLarry, it looks like Netflix<\/strong> is gonna get Warner Bros.<\/strong>, but if you really really want it, Larry, I\u2019ll make sure you get it\u201d (Hollywood Reporter<\/strong>, 3\/17\/26<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Even if Trump has not explicitly vocalized his preference for an Ellison-owned CNN<\/b>, it is clear that his personal preference effectively amounts to federal regulatory approval. Put simply, when it comes to antitrust matters, or virtually anything regulatory, pandering to Trump<\/a> is a prerequisite.<\/p>\n

And the Ellisons are not shy about pandering: In early December 2025, while the Netflix<\/b> deal was still in play, David Ellison met with Trump and DoJ officials in Washington, DC, where he publicly pitched that, if Paramount<\/b> acquired WBD<\/b>, he would implement \u201csweeping changes<\/a>\u201d at CNN<\/b>.<\/p>\n

As Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo <\/b>(12\/8\/25<\/a>) observed, shady backdoor dealing and political corruption form the scaffolding of the media oligarchy, a dynamic that reaches new extremes under the Trump regime:<\/p>\n

Trump has refashioned antitrust oversight to be little more than a personal veto for the Trump family. Friends can do mergers; foes can\u2019t. Indeed, the indifferent and uncommitted can\u2019t either. You need to get right with the Trump family.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hope from the states<\/b><\/h3>\n
\"American<\/a><\/p>\n

David Dayen (American Prospect<\/strong>, 2\/27\/26<\/a>): \u201cA lifeline exists outside of Trump\u2019s grasp to rethink this looming disaster\u2026. But the state AGs are going to have to act fast.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

While it seems unlikely that federal officials with the power to intervene will do so, there is some cause for optimism at the state level. State governments, particularly state attorneys general, have both the authority and a track record of blocking mergers, even those approved by federal agencies.<\/p>\n

Currently leading the charge is California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who, immediately following the news of a potential Paramount<\/b>\/WBD <\/b>deal, posted on X<\/b> (2\/26\/26<\/a>) that his office would vigorously investigate the merger. California has taken center stage in this fight, due to the outsized impact that such a deal would have on the state\u2019s television and film workforce.<\/p>\n

Recent history underscores the validity of these concerns. Just last year, mass layoffs<\/a> followed the Ellisons\u2019 Skydance<\/b>\/Paramount <\/b>merger, demonstrating the damage that monopolistic practices wreak on workers.<\/p>\n

How effective this resistance will be against the sheer capital and political forces driving the Paramount<\/b>\/WBD <\/b>deal remains uncertain. As David Dayen explains in the American Prospect<\/b> (2\/27\/26<\/a>), states are well aware of the path forward, and there is historical precedence for them to invoke the Clayton Act to challenge the merger. However, he emphasizes the need to act<\/a> quickly, noting that states \u201care in a race against Paramount<\/b>\u2019s savvy consultants, who are trying to speedrun the deal in a matter of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original – fair.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

17 Apr 2026 – Paramount Skydance\u2018s winning bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery marks a major milestone in media monopolization that, if successful, will further expand Trump-allied tech moguls Larry and David Ellison\u2019s burgeoning power over US news and entertainment media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":315172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[922,3225,3194,555,3281,3768,249,70],"class_list":["post-315171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-bias","tag-billionaires","tag-cnn","tag-elites","tag-evil-empire","tag-military-industrial-media-academic-complex-mimac","tag-trump","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315173,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315171\/revisions\/315173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}