Paramount has reached a settlement resolving the antitrust lawsuit filed by 12 state attorneys general that had stalled its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The consent decree requires an editorial oversight board for CNN and CBS News, annual theatrical releases with added domestic production spending, and separate sale of cable bundles to distributors, but does not force Paramount to sell off its networks or studios. The agreement still needs court approval before the merger can proceed.
cnet.com
· 2026-09-22
Paramount Skydance has reached a settlement that clears the way for its takeover of Warner Bros, ending a prolonged period of negotiation and legal wrangling. The agreement resolves outstanding disputes between the two parties and allows the merger process to move forward.
entertainment.slashdot.org
· 2026-09-21
Paramount reached a settlement with a coalition of 12 state attorneys general, led by California's Rob Bonta, who had sued to block its $11 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. The company agreed to establish an editorial independence board overseeing CBS News and CNN, commit to 30 theatrical releases annually, and protect CBS News Broadcast writers from layoffs for five years while paying $17.5 million to the Writers Guild's health fund. The merger is now expected to close in early October, giving Paramount chief David Ellison control over franchises including DC and Harry Potter.
engadget.com
· 2026-09-21
California and other states that had sued to block Paramount Skydance's $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery reached a settlement allowing the deal to proceed, according to multiple reports. The agreement reportedly relies on behavioral commitments from the companies rather than blocking the merger outright, and comes after four states that initially resisted California's proposed terms dropped their objections over the weekend.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-21
Paramount reached a settlement with a coalition of state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America that had sought to block its $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. The agreement includes commitments to produce more than 30 films annually and expand U.S.-based film production, addressing concerns raised about jobs and industry health.
theverge.com
· 2026-09-21
The FCC has granted Paramount a waiver of its 25% foreign-ownership limit for broadcast licensees, allowing sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE to collectively hold up to 49.5% equity in the merged Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery entity. The commission says the funds will hold non-voting stakes, so they won't exercise formal control over the 28 broadcast stations involved. The underlying petition had actually requested approval for up to 100% foreign ownership.
engadget.com
· 2026-09-18
The FCC has approved Paramount Skydance's request to waive federal foreign-ownership limits, allowing indirect foreign ownership to reach 49.5 percent through investments from sovereign wealth funds in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar. The funds, totaling roughly $24 billion, are tied to Paramount's pending $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal already cleared by the Justice Department but still facing a lawsuit from several US states.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-18
The FCC has waived its 25 percent cap on foreign equity ownership to approve a deal allowing sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi to collectively hold up to 49.5 percent of the combined Paramount-Warner Bros. entity. The agency argued the stakes carry no voting rights and therefore no control, but critics including Free Press and Commissioner Anna Gomez dispute that reasoning.
theverge.com
· 2026-09-18
Oracle announced Saturday that executive chairman Larry Ellison has called off a plan to sell 50 million of his shares, worth roughly $7.5 billion, that had been disclosed in an earlier regulatory filing. The company said no shares were sold under the plan and that Ellison has no other plans to sell Oracle stock, without explaining the reversal.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-13
Larry Ellison has scrapped a 10b5-1 trading plan that would have allowed him to sell up to 50 million Oracle shares, worth about $7.5 billion at current prices. The plan, adopted June 22 and set to expire Oct. 24, had been disclosed in a regulatory filing just a day before its cancellation, and no shares were ever sold under it. Oracle says Ellison has no other plans to divest any of his stock.
cnbc.com
· 2026-09-12
Warner Bros. purchased the unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's, written by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison, immediately following the Pearl Harbor attack and America's subsequent entry into World War II. The studio rushed it into production during summer 1942, casting Humphrey Bogart, previously known for gangster roles, in the lead alongside Ingrid Bergman. The film premiered in New York that November and went on to win three Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
thecollector.com
· 2026-09-10
Google is reportedly courting major studios like Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Universal, offering large payments—potentially tens of millions per character and billions overall—for rights to train its AI models on their copyrighted content. According to unnamed sources cited by the Los Angeles Times, no studio has yet signed on, but Google is pushing hard to secure these licensing agreements as it races to strengthen its AI capabilities.
theverge.com
· 2026-09-01
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