Could Hollywood Actually De-Monopolize?

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2026

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt is joined by Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw to discuss the state of the various high-profile antitrust cases in Hollywood, particularly how skeptical the states are of the Tegna-Nexstar and Live Nation–Ticketmaster mergers. Is this a new twist in how big media mergers are going to be treated? If so, what does this mean for Paramount–Warner Bros. (00:00)? Matt finishes the show with a prediction about the Academy Awards and AI (28:21). Host: Matt Belloni Guest: Lucas Shaw Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Matt Pevic Theme Song: Devon Renaldo This episode is brought to you by AMC+. Start your free trial today at join.amcplus.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:27.7	Subject to availability while stocks last.
0:34.7	This episode of The Town is presented to you by AMC Networks.
0:38.7	Billy Magnuson and Zach Galfinacus star in the new series The Audacity on AMC and AMC Plus.
0:45.2	Influence rises, people unravel, and CEO meltdowns are business as usual among Silicon Valley elite.
0:51.6	Executive produced by Jonathan Glasser, a writer-producer of Succession
0:55.4	and Better Call Saul. Watch new episodes of The Audacity, Sundays exclusively on AMC and AMC Plus.
1:02.9	It is Monday, April 20th. Some big news last week for those in Hollywood who think that big media
1:08.9	is getting too big. Federal judge blocked the $6.2 billion merger of two television station giants,
1:16.9	Next Star and Tegna.
1:18.9	Those are TV station owners, not networks, and the deal would allow the combined company
1:23.5	to reach 60% of the country's TV households.
1:27.0	That's well above the limit of 39% that's currently in place.
1:30.9	But the FCC commissioner, our guy Brendan Carr,
1:33.9	he granted a waiver because he and Donald Trump see the more conservative station
1:38.1	owners as better for their agenda than the more liberal network news operators.
1:42.8	But even though the federal government blessed this deal,
	...

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