WME Group executive chairman and TKO Group CEO Ari Emanuel has proposed creating an editorial board to oversee CNN in order to quell concerns about the Ellison family’s ownership of the network in the pending $110 billion Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger.
The idea was floated during a CNBC interview on Tuesday, in which Emanuel argued that lawsuits from 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America to block the $110 billion deal is about politics and the Warner-owned news network.
“There’s a way around that if you just get in a room, not cost everybody money, and say, ‘okay, let’s put an editorial board over the news organization,’ so that everybody’s calm about news and possibly Larry Ellison controlling CNN and CBS,” he told SquawkBox. “That’s an easy solve and then they can get to the business of making movies and television, which has been difficult over the last six years.”
The proposal comes after Emanuel, a business partner of Ellison who brokered a $7.7 billion deal for Paramount’s UFC rights, wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week arguing that state AGs should drop their lawsuit and that the merger would help Hollywood.
When asked about his business connection to Ellison, Emanuel argued that he has deals all over the industry and that his position “just informs me because it’s not 2010, it’s 2026.” He then reiterated that the deal would create a strong, fourth streaming player after Amazon, Netflix and Disney and touted Ellison’s commitment for 30 movies and 170 TV shows per year.
“He’s going to spend probably $30 billion in content a year. We need that for the economy of Hollywood. It’s one of our biggest exports,” Emanuel said. “They’re going to spend probably with the ticking [fee] a couple billion dollars. That’s going to come out of production. That can’t be good.”
Emanuel added that California Attorney General Rob Bonta should “worry about bringing economic stability to the state” instead of a lawsuit that “doesn’t hold up on the numbers and the percentages as it relates to the movie and television business.”
An antitrust trial related to the lawsuits by the state AGs and WGA is set to be scheduled at a later date. Paramount agreed to push the merger’s closing until five days after the outcome of a trial or June 1, 2027, whichever comes earliest.
Paramount has proposed holding a trial in November, while state AGs and the WGA have proposed a trial in April 2027, the latter of which would trigger the deal’s 25 cent per share ticking fee that translates to $650 million per quarter and $7 million per day until closing.
Despite the lawsuits, the deal already received approval from the U.S. Department of Justice and Warner Bros. shareholders. The European Commission also cleared the deal with conditions, including Paramount’s exit from United International Pictures.
Other countries where the deal has received clearance or where relevant waiting periods have expired include Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, Ukraine, Montenegro, New Zealand, and North Macedonia. Foreign direct investment authorities in Spain, Germany, Slovenia, Belgium, Czechia, Italy, France and Romania have also signed off.
The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority will decide whether to clear the merger or refer it for a more in-depth Phase 2 investigation by Friday.
U.K. Secretary of Culture, Media and Sport Lisa Nandy previously said she is “minded to intervene” and asked the companies to address concerns about whether the deal would result in a “sufficient plurality” of views in news media and address the need for “sufficient plurality of persons with control of the media enterprises, or the enterprises providing on-demand programme services or both, serving that audience.”
In addition to the UK, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is reviewing the foreign investment in the deal, though a specific timeline for completion has not been publicly announced.
