A potential deal involving either Netflix or Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery has become a flashpoint for much bigger questions about media power, consolidation, and the streaming economy.

At the center of it all is a shifting balance of power, tech-tripped and platforms with

massive reach and data on one side, and legacy studios and institutions struggling to adapt

on the other. While executives from all three media players battle behind the scenes,

the ripple effects could shape what audiences watch, how much they pay, and which voices

get heard for decades to come.

Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Thursday, January 15,

2026. To help us understand what's really at stake, I'm joined by Brian Stelter, Chief Media

Analyst with CNN, a longtime reporter on the media business. Brian, thank you so much for coming

on the excerpt. Great to be here. Thanks. This story has escalated quickly from deal speculation to

lawsuits. President Donald Trump even weighed in saying,

quote, I think it's imperative that CNN be sold, unquote. If we zoom out, what does this moment

tell us about how the media business is adapting to huge shifts in the creation and consumption

of content.

I would say, number one, these media companies, which have historically been viewed as

giants on the landscape, you know, leaders in Hollywood, telling stories around the world.

Now they look a little bit small in comparison to TikTok and YouTube and meta, which

owns Facebook and WhatsApp. And you see these big studios, they are still very big, all having to

adapt and respond and readjust in an environment where Apple's making television shows. I'm a

consulting producer on the morning show on Apple.

That's my side hustle. So I have one foot in that world. I've seen Apple and Amazon and these

big tech players come in and reorient Hollywood. And that is why you see Paramount, for example,

...