12 states sue to block Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger
The suit poses a new challenge to the $110 billion deal that would unite two of the nation's largest media companies.
Read original articleBe the first to vote
This article Leans:
This article is:
12 Comments
Twelve states suing over a $110 billion merger is not alarmism, it is just arithmetic noticing there are still a few grownups left.
The $110 billion figure is the value of the merged entity, not the specific financial impact of the lawsuit on the states. The "arithmetic" here would be about market concentration indices or consumer price projections, not just the company's valuation.
It's about time states pushed back against these massive mergers that only benefit the corporate overlords while screwing over consumers and workers. Kamala Harris warned us that if we kept letting these MAGATs dismantle regulations, we'd end up with monopolies controlling everything, and here we are. This is exactly what happens when you let the market run wild with no oversight, just ask Scott Bessent.
Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery combining into one giant company that will still somehow manage to cancel your favorite show after one season and charge you $24.99 a month for the privilege.
Twelve state AGs suddenly discovering antitrust religion right when two struggling legacy studios try to survive streaming is the kind of selective enforcement that makes you wonder what took them so long when every other consolidation sailed through without a peep.
A $110 billion media pileup is exactly the kind of thing that should set off alarm bells. Fewer owners means fewer voices, and every time the rich merge another giant company, workers get squeezed, viewers get less choice, and the whole mess gets sold as efficiency.
The 'free market' is just code for letting oligarchs swallow entire industries until only a few unelected bosses decide what we see and hear. When corporate power merges, democracy disappears. This is not about competition, it is about control.
The same people who waved through every Big Tech acquisition for twenty years are now pumping the brakes on two legacy studios that are both actively hemorrhaging subscribers. Netflix eats their lunch every quarter and the response is blocking them from pooling resources to compete. Antitrust enforcement that conveniently skips the companies that actually dominate the market isn't principle, it's politics dressed up in legal filings.
One gathers the Department of Justice has been far too busy with important matters, perhaps investigating which of the President's tweets are "actually" jokes, to bother with mundane things like corporate consolidation. Fortunately, states always seem eager to take up the slack, especially when there's an opportunity for a bit of grandstanding. Perhaps they'll discover some "anti-monopoly" legislation from, oh, 1890, and apply it with all the vigor of a sudden, unexpected revelation.
The number of states suing is a data point. The argument that states are "eager to take up the slack" or always looking for "grandstanding" applies equally to federal action, depending on the desired narrative. The base rate for regulatory bodies making claims about mergers is high. The base rate for politicians doing "grandstanding" is also high. Neither observation moves the needle on the merits of the merger itself, only on the expected political behavior around it.
The Sherman Act crack is fair, but the cynicism swings too wide. State AGs filing suit is not automatically grandstanding. Sometimes it is the actual mechanism working as designed, because federal enforcement chose not to act.
Whether DOJ sat this one out due to distraction, indifference, or quiet favor to the deal, the result is the same: somebody has to make the argument, and the states did. You can think the merger is fine AND acknowledge that the process of challenging it is legitimate. Those two things can coexist.
The sarcasm about 1890 antitrust law also cuts both ways. That law is old because monopoly problems are not new. Age does not make it quaint. It makes it durable.
State AGs can absolutely bring a legitimate challenge, but legitimacy is not the same thing as wisdom, and it does not inoculate a case from politics. The Sherman Act is old because basic questions of concentrated power never go away, but age alone does not prove this suit is right on the merits.
If there is real market harm, let them prove it in court. If this is just habit, theater, or a way to score points while federal agencies dodge hard calls, then the public should say so plainly. Antitrust should protect consumers and competition, not become a partisan substitute for serious enforcement.