Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said that he still is inviting Paramount CEO David Ellison to testify on the proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, after the lawmaker held a 2 1/2 “spotlight” hearing that warned about the merger’s impact on everything from jobs to free speech.
“We didn’t have to do this hearing at this date and time,” Booker told reporters after the Capitol Hill event, in response to a question from The Guardian. “We should be having a bipartisan hearing with Mr. Ellison. He should come to Congress. If he’s so confident in his merger, he should come and defend it in a hearing like the Netflix CEO did.”
The event was a “spotlight” hearing, not an official hearing designated by a legislative committee. But lawmakers have held them to put more public focus on a particular issue. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Rep. Laura Friedman (D-CA) held a spotlight hearing on the merger last month in Los Angeles.
What was noted multiple times during the hearings was how Republicans have so far declined to call an official hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, even though one was called when Netflix had a deal to buy Warner Bros., and Ted Sarandos testified.
Ellison was invited to Wednesday’s hearing, albeit earlier this week, but a Paramount executive informed Booker that Ellison could not attend because he was attending a funeral of a family member.
“There’s no difference in that to me,” Booker said. “This was not the only date and time we could have done that. If he had said, ‘I need to do another time,’ the invitation is still open. I hope you will do the right thing and come before Congress.”
Although it did not come up during the hearing itself, Booker commented on a report in Breaker that Ellison was hosting a dinner next week for Trump, administration officials and CBS News personnel in Washington.
“That should outrage a lot of Americans,” Booker said, saying that there is “too much closeness between the White House and the Ellisons, too much money changing hands, too much using of our broken campaign finance systems to curry favor.”
Those testifying at the hearing included David Borenstein, this year’s documentary feature winner for Mr. Nobody Against Putin; Michael Isaac, director of legal services at the Writers Guild of America East; attorney Katie Phang; and Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, co-founder and executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and member of the steering committee of Jane Fonda’s Committee for the First Amendment.
The speakers spotlighted the impact on the entertainment industry, whether it be jobs or diversity of content, as well as the news business, including the influence of the Trump administration, which is reviewing the transaction.
Actor Mark Ruffalo, appearing via Zoom, told the hearing that the merger would have a “devastating effect,” pointing to the loss of jobs following Disney’s acquisition of Fox assets in 2019, and Ellison’s purchase of Skydance last year.
“You don’t have to watch Citizen Kane or read 1984 to understand that the concentrated … control that this merger represents is a threat to free expression, an informed populace and democracy,” he said.
There was extensive talk about the impact that the merger would have on CNN, with a number of those testifying pointing to the changes at CBS News since Skydance acquired Paramount last year.
Isaac cited the decision by Paramount’s previous owners to settle Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against CBS over the way that 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris. Although CBS attorneys had called the lawsuit baseless, Paramount settled with Trump for $16 billion, clearing the way for FCC approval.
Skydance then agreed to install an ombudsman at CBS News, to take complaints about media bias. The person tapped for the role was Kenneth Weinstein, who had previously led the conservative Hudson Institute.
“Numerous high profile departures point to the same explanation: Those folks have exited CBS because they believe they could not maintain their journalistic integrity, complying with the political demands of the new leadership,” he said.
Isaac said one of the CBS News members of WGAE “was reprimanded for writing correctly that RFK Jr. spread misinformation about vaccines. That member was among the first to be laid off when Skydance took over.”
Ellison has said that CNN’s independence “needs to be maintained.”
Ellison also has responded to Schiff and Friedman’s concerns about job loss, writing in a letter to them last month that the transaction “will help preserve good jobs and expand opportunities for workers in California and in the United States.” Ellison also said that the combined company would release 30 movies per year.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Schiff noted Ellison’s response but said, “While there was a promise of so many movies per year, there’s no promise about where those movies would be made, or where that production would take place. So I’m deeply concerned with the impact on the workforce.”
Paramount has not yet commented on the hearing, but in a letter to Booker on Tuesday, Ted Lehman, its senior vice president and head of U.S. public policy and government affairs, said that the merger would be “procompetitive.”
Lehman wrote, “Most importantly a Paramount Skydance/Warner Bros. Discovery transaction is all about increasing the amount of content released in theaters and streaming platforms. This increase in content will create competition and greater demand for creative talent. We want customers in theaters, where they can experience the full moviegoing experience, and the increased number of theatrical releases that the combined company will generate will provide our streaming platform with an impressive array of content that will check the dominance of rivals like Netflix.”
Congress does not have a say on whether the Trump administration approves a merger; that is in the hands of the Justice Department, which a number of hearing speakers alleged was now politicized to favor whatever deals Trump wants. But California Attorney General Rob Bonta and other state AGs are looking at the transaction, looking to challenge it in their own lawsuit.
That said, some of those at the hearing called for more mobilization against the transaction. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) asked Ruffalo, “Do you think that public outcry regarding this potential merger would help? Because I don’t think there is much public outcry or awareness of what is happening.”
Ruffalo noted the open letter, unveiled this week, in which more than 1,000 industry professionals called for blocking the transaction. According to organizers, the number of signees reached more than 3,000 by Wednesday, with a website called Blockthemerger.com.
“We have artists who are both working within Paramount and within Warner Bros. now, and it’s only growing,” he said. “…What we’ve all seen is capitulation leads to degradation. And anyone who capitulates to corrupt forces gets degraded.”
Ruffalo added, “We are looking for partners at our agencies. We are looking for partners at our unions. We’re looking for partners in the ancillary unions. And we’re looking for partners in consumers.”
