David Zaslav desires a bidding warfare for Warner Bros. Discovery – and he's on the lookout for help from Donald Trump's Justice Division to make it occur, On The Cash has realized.
I do know it sounds loopy. As The Publish was first to report, the Trump administration desires Zaslav's media conglomerate often known as WBD to be offered to the president's friends at Paramount Skydance, run by its CEO David Ellison and his father Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle.
Whereas Larry is value about $350 billion, perhaps extra essential is his shut friendship with The Donald. As first reported by The Publish, Trump desires WBD within the Ellisons' palms, and insiders say it's as a result of he desires favorable protection from its CNN information channel, which has been accused of anti-MAGA bias.
The Ellisons, in the meantime, need WBD as a result of it has the No. 1 ranked studio, the No. 3 ranked streaming companies, in addition to cable channels like HBO and CNN regardless of its lowish rankings, nonetheless makes a ton of cash.
However Zaslav – often known as Zas within the media enterprise – thinks he can get the Ellisons to pay greater than the $23.50 a share they've already supplied. He believes he can entice Netflix, Amazon and most significantly Comcast – regardless of Trump's distaste for the latter over its possession of MAGA-hating cable channel MSNBC – to bid due to the quirky means such offers are permitted.
This one particularly would go earlier than the extra free-market oriented DOJ antitrust division versus the Federal Communications Fee, which is run by conservative firebrand Brendan Carr who can be much less inclined to throw a bone to, say Comcast CEO Brian Roberts.
Because it seems, Carr doesn't have an official vote within the sale of all or a part of WBD as a result of none of it entails the switch of native broadcast licenses that the FCC regulates. In different phrases, the choice – at the very least on paper – can be as much as DOJ antitrust chief Gail Slater, one other Trump appointee, but in addition her workers, longtime DOJ workers attorneys who train appreciable discretion on such issues as deal approval.
Zas can be betting that “even when the DOJ says ‘no' to any of those potential suitors, he can flip to the federal courts to overturn its choice as a result of the antitrust case isn't very robust,” stated an individual with direct information of the WBD chief's pondering.
A rep for Zaslav declined to remark; a DOJ antitrust rep didn't return a name for remark.
There may be precedent backing Zas's plan: A federal court docket famously overruled throughout Trump 1 his antitrust division's veto of AT&T buy of TimeWarner. Antitrust argued it created an excessive amount of consolidation of media energy that might be unhealthy for shoppers, whereas a federal decide stated modifications in know-how, extra competitors in programming, is making these considerations much less worrisome.
Mockingly, it's the unravelling of that deal, resulting in the merger of Discovery, then run by Zas, and WarnerMedia that led to the creation of WBD in 2022.
The query for everybody however the Ellisons is whether or not they have the abdomen for a possible, and protracted, authorized battle with Trump. It's additionally no layup that the courts would conform to overturn the antitrust verdict with any of the potential combos aside from Paramount Skydance. You may see how the antitrust arguments can be framed: Netflix is the No 1 streamer searching for to mix with WBD's No. 3. Amazon already owns a studio, as does Comcast.
Brian Roberts is addressing a few of these considerations by spinning off properties like MSNBC so he gained't be proudly owning two cable channels. Plus, some media insiders imagine Roberts must do a take care of WBD to remain related in a enterprise the place content material is king. His studio Common Studios has lagged behind Warner Brothers this 12 months and he's in determined want of a development technique.
“He's received to bid,” Wealthy Greenfield, the distinguished media analyst at LightShed Companions instructed On The Cash.
Greenfield lately wrote that Roberts may win over Trump by copying a few of the issues completed by the Ellisons, together with hiring a right-leaning ombudsman and journalist Bari Weiss, a critic of progressivism to supervise its left-leaning tv community CBS. He's known as for Roberts to rent Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, who now runs his Turning Level USA conservative nonprofit as editor-in-chief of NBC.
“Positive, at first blush it sounds loopy, however Trump loves a deal and Brian Roberts must assume massive and in another way.”
A Comcast spokesman declined to remark.
In the meantime, Zas thinks the opposite antitrust considerations are overblown given the quickly altering market for programming and information consumption. He additionally thinks Netflix, Amazon, and Comcast want his content material, and even his IP for no matter AI-driven programming is created, so they may simply roll the cube in court docket if the DOJ does object.
True, Zas is privately reminding folks that he isn't towards promoting to the Ellisons, however he desires them to pay greater than their final bid at $23.50 a share. The best way he does that's to get different bidders making presents now that he has opened the method to all, and by explaining that the antitrust case may not be such a biggie.
