Former California AG Bill Lockyer Offers A Dumb And Lazy Defense Of The Paramount Warner Bros Merger

from the that’s-now-how-any-of-this-works dept

There’s just an exhaustingly long list of reasons why the $111 billion planned acquisition of Warner Brothers by Larry Ellison and Paramount is very, very bad. Bad for consumers, bad for labor, bad for journalism, bad for democracy, and bad for markets.

For one thing, it’s financed by a bunch of murderous overseas autocrats. The massive debt load from deals like this always result in mass layoffs, higher prices for consumers, and corner cutting, resulting in a steadily shittier company, worse overall products, and a less healthy media. There’s also issues with Ellison trying to buy up all the news outlets and turn them into (even worse) right wing coddling bullshit and agitprop machines helmed by incompetent bad actors like Bari Weiss.

So it’s great timing for former Democratic California Attorney General Bill Lockyer to pop up over at The Hollywood Reporter to give a pathetic defense of the deal that pretends none of this is happening.

Trade mags are generally terrible. Most of the merger coverage at places like The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, and Variety go comically out of their way to avoid acknowledging these giant deals are always bad. As in, it’s not any sort of actual debate. There are fifty years of very clear history on this subject, recently culminating in the giant turd that was the AT&T–>Discovery–>Warner Bros disaster.

But here comes the 85-year-old Lockyer, who pretends to care about antitrust reform, right before he insists that people should ignore all of the terrible problems with Paramount’s latest deal. One of the central themes in his piece is that Paramount and Warner Brothers have to merge because it’s the only way they can compete with Netflix, Amazon, and Apple:

“Traditional studios are no longer competing only with one another. California cannot and should not ignore that reality. Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery are competing against global technology platforms and streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon, Apple and others with enormous financial resources, diversified revenue streams and worldwide reach.”

That’s simply not how any of this works.

A Trump-allied oligarch and his nepobaby kid taking on a mountain of debt doesn’t magically result in a company that’s healthier and more competitive. All the debt costs are offloaded onto the back of workers, consumers, and product quality. These mergers always result in a less healthy company than ever, regardless of whatever silly smoke David Ellison is trying to blow up the ass of Hollywood elite.

It’s possible Lockyer is engaged in a DC policy paid advertorial on behalf of Paramount, though the Hollywood Reporter doesn’t offer any sort of financial conflict of interest disclosure, so one just has to assume Lockyer, like so many Democrats, doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about when it comes to things like modern politics in the authoritarian era, or modern antitrust reform.

Though given Lockyer’s personal history of approving harmful consolidation (like his office allowing the Hearst Corporation-owned San Francisco Examiner to acquire its competitor the San Francisco Chronicle in 1999) or weak-kneed settlements or antitrust policy failures (Microsoft, Sutter Health), it’s maybe not surprising that he thinks one of the worst mergers in media history should be approved.

Lockyer’s also quick to shoot down concerns that Ellison’s domination of media is any sort of real world problem:

“Some have raised broader concerns about media ownership, editorial influence or political viewpoints, as the combined company would own both CBS News and CNN. This debate will undoubtedly continue to dominate talk shows and social media. I, too, worry about plutocratic dominance of media markets. But merger enforcement should remain focused on competition and the potential for consumer and worker harm — the core pillars of antitrust — not political disagreements over content or viewpoint.”

But this isn’t 1997. It’s now impossible to untangle corrupt authoritarian domination of media, and their relentless dismantling of media consolidation limits, from broader antitrust arguments (though I know there are centrist Democrats and MAGA “antitrust enforcers” who would very much like to). There are vast harms caused by the destruction of what’s left of journalism and public interest media, and any “antitrust reform” that doesn’t factor in media audience welfare and the health of electoral consensus in the age of Elon Musk and Larry Ellison enabled fascism isn’t reform, it’s patty cake.

Meaningful DOJ Antitrust reform would be nice, but it can’t fix things alone. We need an FCC that also actually cares about media consolidation. And it might be nice, as Gigi Sohn has long argued, to begin looking at meaningful media ownership diversity requirements in a bid to protect minority and independent journalism.

But we don’t have that. We have an FCC actively waging a war of censorship on anybody critical of an unpopular autocrat. We have a DOJ actively encouraging harmful consolidation at the hands of technofascist billionaires keen on pummeling the electorate with right wing agitprop. And an opposition Democrat party with weak knees and zero credibility on antitrust or media reform.

Trump and friends are self-serving autocrats dead seat on dismantling whatever’s left of meaningful competition and opposition. That Netflix, Comcast, Disney, and Apple still exist isn’t any consolation if the obvious ultimate end goal is zero restrictions on total consolidation. Instead of proudly advertising he doesn’t understand current political and market realities, Lockyer should probably just enjoy retirement.

Filed Under: antitrust, authoritarians, Bill Lockyer, diversity, larry ellison, media consolidation, mergers, reform

Companies: paramount, warner bros.