Billionaires Brawl Over Warner Bros.

What A Day

Crooked Media

News, Daily News

4.6 • 12K Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’ve been talking about the Paramount Skydance/Warner Brothers Discovery/Netflix Billionaire Boys Club Spectacular for a few days now. But it’s really worth digging into the details to understand how all of this could reshape our media diets – and our politics. If Netflix buys Warner Bros. Discovery, that could be very bad news for Hollywood. But if Paramount buys Warner Bros. Discovery, the Trump-supporting Ellisons would own: CBS, CNN, HBO, Paramount, DC Studios, TNT Sports, Warner Bros., Oracle and a whole bunch more. It’s basically a big, complicated mess — so to unpack what it means for consumers and why on earth President Trump is involved, we spoke to Ben Smith. He’s co-founder and editor-in-chief of Semafor, and host of the Mixed Signals podcast. And in headlines, Trump brings his economic message to the American people on the first stop of his affordability tour, the Supreme Court hears arguments over campaign finance limits, and will Americans follow Australia’s footsteps and ban social media for children?

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's Wednesday, December 10th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day. The show asking,
0:06.6	with the next time you gather, 2,397 golden retrievers in a park in Argentina, can you invite me?
0:13.6	Please?
0:20.4	On today's show, President Donald Trump brings his economic message to the American people on the first stop of his era's tour, specifically the era of a mass affordability crisis.
0:30.5	And go play outside.
0:32.1	Will Americans follow Australia's footsteps and ban social media for teens?
0:36.4	Well, let's start with mergers and acquisitions.
0:39.1	No, seriously. We've been talking about the Paramount Skydance Warner Brothers Discovery Netflix
0:45.1	Billionaire Boys Club spectacular for a few days now. But it's really worth digging into the
0:49.8	details to understand how all of this could reshape our media diets and our politics.
0:54.5	Let's start with Paramount Skydance, which itself is the result of a 2024 merger.
0:59.5	It owns CBS and Paramount Pictures, and it's run by CEO David Ellison, son of Oracle Corporation
1:05.5	founder and chairman, Larry Ellison.
1:07.8	And President Trump has been a big fan of the Ellisons, not in small part because
1:11.5	Larry has donated millions to Republican causes and was one of the buyers that took over 80% of
1:17.3	TikTok. Got all that? Good, because the next players in our story are a little easier to understand.
1:23.7	Netflix is Netflix, you know, where you watch the Great British Baking Show and and also a ton of Lifetime-esque movies and shows ranging in quality from Squid Game to Emily and Paris, which...
1:34.3	Whatever you need to get through the day.
1:36.3	Then there's Warner Brothers Discovery, which is up for grabs.
1:39.3	It owns CNN, the Discovery Channel, HETV, and more importantly to the people fighting over it,
1:45.0	movie franchises like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, and classics like Casablanca and Citizen Kane.
1:50.8	You know, movie movies.
	...

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