It seems some people take issue with one billionaire family overseeing a third of the US’ entertainment media.
The Writers Guild of America East and Writers Guild of America West have combined forces for an antitrust lawsuit against Paramount Skydance’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. Their case claims that the deal violates US antitrust laws as well as creating specific business harms to writers.
The writers’ unions complaint raises concerns that “the merged Paramount-Warner Bros. entity would have both the incentive and the ability to lower costs by suppressing writers’ wages and reducing output. Writers will be paid less and have fewer employment opportunities.” It also asserts that reduced competition could see the remaining studios “converging on the lowest-risk projects” rather than gambling on more original concepts and creative voices. The suit points to the 2022 Warner Bros.-Discover merger and the 2025 Paramount-Skydance merger as evidence that deals of this type are often succeeded by layoffs and cost-cutting.
Just yesterday, 12 state attorneys general filed a separate antitrust case to prevent the merger. Paramount won approval for the $110 billion deal in June after a protracted and aggressive few months of maneuvering where it fought off the initial bid from Netflix to acquire a portion of the WBD business.