The New York Budgets

Tag: Cable News Network (CNN)

  • Paramount Wins Bidding War for Warner Discovery After Netflix Backs Out

    Paramount Wins Bidding War for Warner Discovery After Netflix Backs Out

    Paramount Global—now under the control of Skydance Media—has clinched a $81 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., outbidding streaming behemoth Netflix Inc. after the latter bowed out, citing the escalated price as no longer viable. The victory for David Ellison’s Paramount caps a contentious takeover saga, uniting storied assets like HBO, CNN, and the DC Comics universe under one roof, while raising fresh antitrust alarms in an industry already grappling with consolidation and shifting viewer habits.

    Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters announced the withdrawal in a statement late Thursday, hours after Warner’s board deemed Paramount’s revised $31-per-share all-cash offer superior to Netflix’s $27.75-per-share bid for the studios and HBO Max alone. “This transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price,” they said, emphasizing fiscal discipline amid Wall Street’s scrutiny of Netflix’s ballooning content spend. The decision sent Netflix shares (NFLX) surging 10% in after-hours trading to $682.50, recouping some of the $170 billion market value erosion since rumors of its Warner pursuit surfaced in September 2025. Analysts at JPMorgan hailed the pullback as “prudent,” noting Netflix’s subscriber base hit 285 million in Q4, up 12% year-over-year, without the added debt burden.

    For Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), the deal—pending regulatory nods—marks a lifeline under embattled CEO David Zaslav, whose cost-cutting regime has drawn ire but delivered hits like the Oscar-nominated “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another.” Zaslav, in a memo to staff, celebrated the merger as a value-maximizer for shareholders, projecting $6 billion in synergies through streamlined operations and shared IP like Harry Potter and Superman. “Once our Board votes to adopt the Paramount merger agreement, it will create tremendous value,” he stated. Warner shares dipped 0.35% to $10.85 in regular trading but climbed 2% after-hours on merger optimism.

    Netflix Inc.
    Netflix Inc.
    Source: FactSet

    Paramount’s path to victory was fraught. Ellison, son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, prioritized Warner after Skydance’s $8.4 billion takeover of Paramount in August 2025, viewing the combo as essential to compete against Disney, Netflix, and Amazon in the $500 billion global entertainment market. Initial overtures were rebuffed, but Paramount’s hostile $30-per-share bid in December—escalating to $31 this week—prevailed. Key concessions included a $7 billion termination fee for regulatory failures and covering Warner’s $2.8 billion breakup payout to Netflix, plus an accelerated “ticking fee” of 25 cents per share quarterly starting September 30.

    The merger creates a colossus: Paramount gains Warner’s film/TV studios, HBO Max (with 110 million subscribers), and cable nets like CNN, TNT, TBS, and Food Network—bolstering its Peacock and Paramount+ platforms amid a streaming wars projected to reach $240 billion by 2030, per PwC. Yet, hurdles loom. The Justice Department, already probing Netflix’s bid for anticompetitive practices, will scrutinize this tie-up, especially combining legacy studios and news outlets. Media watchdogs like Free Press’s Craig Aaron decried it as “unthinkable,” warning that folding CNN into CBS News could amplify biased coverage, particularly on sensitive issues like Israel’s actions in the Middle East—where consolidated ownership risks amplifying pro-Israel narratives at the expense of balanced reporting.

    Ellison’s revamp of CBS News—installing Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief to target “center-left to center-right” audiences—has sparked concerns of editorial shifts, potentially tilting foreign policy discourse. CNN President Mark Thompson urged staff not to “jump to conclusions,” but the deal’s scale—creating a entity with $60 billion in annual revenue—invites FTC intervention, especially post-Trump antitrust relaxations.

    Wall Street cheered the outcome: Paramount shares (PSKY) leaped 10.04% to $45.20, adding $12 billion to its market cap, while the S&P 500 Media Index rose 1.8%. “This is Ellison’s moonshot—scale to survive in streaming’s endgame,” said MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson, upgrading Paramount to Buy with a $55 target.

    As regulators deliberate, the merger underscores Hollywood’s consolidation imperative amid cord-cutting and ad market volatility. For Netflix, the retreat preserves cash for originals like “Squid Game” sequels; for Paramount, it’s a bet on IP synergy to challenge Disney’s $200 billion empire. But in an era of media monopolies, questions linger: Will this super-studio foster innovation or stifle diverse voices, especially on global hotspots like Israel-Palestine?

  • MSNBC has hired an editor from Politico to head up its new bureau in Washington

    MSNBC has hired an editor from Politico to head up its new bureau in Washington

    As MSNBC prepares to formally break away from its corporate sibling NBC, it’s leaving behind more than just the Art Deco hallways of 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

    Although the 24-hour cable channel is best known for opinionated stars like Rachel Maddow, MSNBC’s midday hours and breaking news coverage have long relied on the journalistic muscle of NBC News, with its sprawling bureaus and amply staffed Washington office.

    That resource will be cut off this year when Comcast, MSNBC’s owner, spins it out along with a batch of other cable networks into a separate company, unaffiliated with the rest of the NBCUniversal family. The usual NBC correspondents who pop up on MSNBC’s air with updates on, say, the latest fight in Congress will no longer be available.

    One option would be to convert MSNBC’s lineup to progressive talk shows, but the channel’s president, Rebecca Kutler, is leaning in a different direction. On Thursday, Ms. Kutler announced the channel’s first-ever Washington bureau chief: not a left-leaning partisan, but a down-the-middle print reporter with long stints at Politico and The Wall Street Journal.

    Her choice, Sudeep Reddy, was most recently a senior managing editor at Politico, and his résumé is heavy with economics and Washington policy coverage.

    “The MSNBC audience is cerebral and appreciates analytical, contextual reporting,” she said in an interview. She added, “He is going to build and run a significant Washington reporting team, that to me matches with the moment — a serious moment — where real reporting will matter.”

    MSNBC superJumbo
    Sudeep Reddy, formerly a managing editor at Politico, at the Brookings Institution in Washington in 2019. (Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket, via Getty Images)

    MSNBC has never had a separate Washington bureau. Ms. Kutler has announced plans to hire more than 100 journalists for the new go-it-alone version of the channel, including new on-air correspondents to cover Capitol Hill, the State and Justice Departments and the Supreme Court — roles that NBC News-affiliated reporters previously filled.

    At a time of contraction in the news business, it is an unusual expansion and something of a gamble. Straight-ahead TV reporting rarely attracts bigger ratings than the partisan commentary that has come to dominate much of 24-hour cable news. Ms. Maddow, for instance, remains MSNBC’s highest-rated host. Many liberal viewers also abandoned MSNBC in the aftermath of President Trump’s re-election, although its ratings have crept back up since the inauguration.

    MSNBC and NBC News have long had an awkward relationship, dating back to the cable channel’s origins in 1996. The staff at NBC News often looked down on its upstart sibling. After MSNBC underwent a ratings boom in the Trump era, some NBC News journalists worried how the profitable partisanship on cable was coloring their efforts to present neutral reporting to a mass audience.

    Mr. Reddy, 45, is expected to start his role in June. He will report to Scott Matthews, a former executive at CNBC and WABC-TV in New York whom Ms. Kutler selected to oversee her channel’s news-gathering operations.

    Ms. Kutler, who was named the channel’s president in February, has made other programming changes. Joy Reid’s 7 p.m. weeknight show was canceled. Jen Psaki, who served as press secretary to former President Biden, took on a 9 p.m. show that airs Tuesdays to Fridays.

  • CNN is launching a new streaming service in the fall of this year

    CNN is launching a new streaming service in the fall of this year

    CNN is getting ready to launch a streaming service. Again.

    Three years after CNN’s parent company killed the hotly anticipated (and very expensive) CNN+ service shortly after it was released, the news network will introduce a new streaming product this fall that packages live and on-demand programming.

    Mark Thompson, the company’s chief executive, told employees about the service in a meeting on Tuesday afternoon. Some of the details about the service remain unclear, including pricing and an exact release date. But Mr. Thompson said the new service would be tied to the company’s recently introduced subscription product, which gives paying members unlimited access to articles posted on CNN.com.

    CNN is also taking pains to avoid alienating its most valuable customers: traditional cable distributors. Those customers will have free access to CNN’s streaming service.

    Alex MacCallum, CNN’s executive vice president of digital products and services, said in a statement that bundling the video service with CNN’s existing digital subscription product would allow “audiences to get the most out of CNN in one seamless and simple way.”

    Like most other news organizations, CNN is trying to find new sources of revenue as its traditional business declines. Mr. Thompson said in an interview this year that the company’s “future prospects will not be good,” if CNN does not follow its audiences to new platforms “with real conviction and scale.”

    Mr. Thompson, who previously led a digital turnaround at The New York Times, has focused his attention on CNN’s digital business since he joined the company in 2023. Investments in the digital efforts are fueled, in part, by a $70 million investment from Warner Bros. Discovery, its parent company.

    Mr. Thompson hired Ms. MacCallum, a former executive at The Times, to lead the network’s digital push, and is planning to add 200 digital-focused employees this year. The network laid off roughly 200 employees focused on its traditional TV operations this year.

    CNN’s new service won’t look like CNN+, its failed $300 million splashy foray into streaming that was stuffed with well-known news and entertainment personalities. The new service will be more stripped down, resembling the network’s traditional cable experience, although not an exact replica. Subscribers will also have access to a library of original shows and documentaries.