Paramount’s $50B Power Grab: Is This the Birth of Trump TV 2.0?

Imagine one Trump aligned family controlling both CBS News and cnn. Plus Batman, Harry Potter and Captain Kirk. According to the Times, Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed its weighing takeover offers and they're the ones who own all those things I just mentioned. They're considering a takeover, including one from Paramount which is led by David Ellison. David Ellison just took over cbs. If that deal happens, Paramount would absorb Warner Brothers, creating a single empire over Hollywood blockbusters and two of America's most influential newsrooms. Analysts say it could rival Netflix and Disney in scale but raise serious political and media concerns. David Ellison's father, tech billionaire Larry Ellison, is a longtime Trump supporter who helped fund conservative media ventures. Paramount recently named Barry Weiss, founder of the First Free Press, as editor in chief of CBS News. That means a merged company could put CNN and CBS News under leadership ideologically tied to Trump allies. A consolidation unlike anything in US media history. What's the real message here? If Paramount takes over Warner Brothers, you're going to see more and more of what appears to be state run media in the United States. We may look no different than what you see in Hungary or modern day Russia where reporters from the most powerful outlets are just pushing a message that appeases those in power. The other big prediction, Bill Maher's Real Time will be gone. He'll be marched out of HBO Studios the day this happens. If Paramount does take over the parent company of HBO Time Warner. Let's dig a little deeper here. I don't mean to seem totally gloom and doom because media is fragmenting in so many different ways. You could say it's, you know, it would be more concerning 25, 30 years ago when most Americans did get their news from so called mainstream media outlets. Cnn, cbs. These days with people getting news from Joe Rogan and the Young Turks and yours truly, there's a lot of fragmentation because I really don't think Paramount is going to be buying me or buying my voice, which is a good thing. It means when you come to me, you will get an independent perspective on the news. I'm here as a sane, sensible centrist. So I'm delivering the news to you and analyzing it through the filter of communication and personal development skills. So that is one of the exciting things about this new world, this new media world we live in. There's, there's all sorts of sizes and shapes and formats of media and news media. Let's look at some more facts here. Paramount's offer reportedly values Warner brothers discovery around $50 billion, which is about how much money Larry Ellison made in one day. Just a few months ago when certain, certain acquisitions and mergers happened. Warner Brothers controls not only CNN but HBO and DC Comics. Their total streaming reach is 200 million plus subscribers. Analysts say this is the biggest consolidation since Disney and Fox. Now traditionally in Washington D.C. the Federal Communications Commission would really scrutinize this and say do we want this much consolidation? Is this good for consumers? Well, there essentially is no FCC anymore. There's just directives from the White House. The question is no longer is this good for consumers? The question is this good politically for certain incumbents? That is the only question that is going to be asked. So it bears watching. I personally am not gonna lose a lot of sleep over Time Warner being sold. There's so many examples of mergers and back and forth and this company gobbling up this company. I well remember now a quarter of a century ago, it was the sound bite of the decade, arguably when Time Warner merged with AOL and the, and the founder of CNN famously said, I haven't been this excited since the night I lost my virginity 30 years later. And of course it was one of the worst mergers of all time where it just eviscerated basically the entire market cap of one of those companies because AOL at the time, really high valuation. Time Warner, the big company making a lot of money, but that is not how it worked out. It will go down in history is one of the absolute worst, worst merger slash acquisitions ever. And I well remember that. So all these big media companies are constantly gobbling up each other, mutating, being spun off. Most of the time it doesn't change the quality of the content much. But times are different now. When Paramount took over CBS and installed a political hack, I would argue in Barry Weiss, that's new, that's just different. You have never seen any company gobble up a gigantic, one of the big three broadcasters with huge, huge multi million audience members every day watching their news and say we're going to put an editor in chief, someone who's never reported a day in their life, never run a news organization, never run tv. We're going to put someone in because of their political position. Barry Weiss, the Free Press they punch left every day. That and their stance on certain issues in the Middle east are very popular with certain political fans of theirs. It's a different time. It's absolutely a different time. All I could tell you, it's more important than ever to support independent media voices. Apologies if this seems self serving.