The Writers Guild of America has released its first statement in response to Warner Bros. Discovery going on sale, warning that a potential sale of the legacy studio to Paramount Skydance would be a “disaster.”
“Merger after merger in the media industry has harmed workers, diminished competition and free speech, and wasted hundreds of billions of dollars better invested in organic growth. Combining Warner Bros. with Paramount or another major studio or streamer would be a disaster for writers, for consumers and for competition,” the Writers Guild’s statement read. “The WGAW and WGAE will work with regulators to block the merger.”
So far, Paramount Skydance has made at least three offers to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, including one for $60 billion. On Tuesday, WBD said in a statement that it would undergo “review of strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value,” a signal that Warner Bros. would be back up for sale three years after the WBD merger was completed.
Both before and after that 2022 merger, the Writers Guild of America was a major voice of protest against it, releasing a memo, called “Broken Promises,” that outlined the anti-competitive practices that followed mergers and acquisitions like Disney’s purchase of 20th Century Fox in 2019.
In 2023, it released a follow-up criticizing Warner Bros. Discovery’s decisions to cancel and shelve billions in film and TV projects in an effort to cut costs.
“The series of mergers that led us here—first the $85 billion AT&T-Time Warner merger and then the $43 billion WarnerMedia Discovery merger—have each
promised to create a better competitor, but have instead left the merged entity debt-burdened and focused on cutting costs to rationalize these disastrous
business decisions,” the WGA wrote at the time.
