What Warner Bros. Discovery’s sale to Paramount could mean for CNN, Turner
After months of bidding, Paramount Skydance has triumphed in its attempt to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal that includes CNN and the television networks created by Ted Turner.
For more than 3,000 employees at the company’s Techwood campus, where CNN, TBS, TNT and other networks reside, the stakes could not be higher. The former Turner networks have been passed along in a never-ending carousel of deals that have taken them from Turner to Time Warner to AT&T and now Warner Bros. Discovery.
WBD, struggling with debt and fewer people watching cable TV, saw a sale as its best path forward.
Paramount, led by David Ellison, announced the $111 billion deal for the storied media company a week ago. Netflix, which announced late last year it would acquire WBD’s studio and streaming businesses, but not its networks, said it would not raise its offer and withdrew from the pursuit.
The combined Warner-Paramount empire will carry about $79 billion in debt, Ellison announced on a Monday call with analysts. That’s more than double the debt of WBD.
The deal will unite Paramount’s roster of linear networks — CBS, MTV, BET — with WBD’s networks, as well as its news operation, CBS, with CNN. The latter will be placed in uncharted territory as it becomes part of a media empire helmed by Ellison, who along with his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, has cultivated a relationship with President Donald Trump.
Paramount did not respond to a request for comment.
Since leading a 2024 effort to combine Paramount with Skydance Media, the younger Ellison has overseen steep cuts at CBS News and acquired The Free Press, a right-of-center media group, and installed its founder, Bari Weiss, as CBS News editor-in-chief.
The Paramount-Warner deal has sparked concern among journalists, both within CNN and outside the organization, over job cuts and if Paramount would lead to ideological shifts at the news organization. CNN is already in the midst of change as it bolsters its digital presence to combat declines in television viewership.
In a Thursday interview with CNBC, Ellison said he supports editorial independence at CNN, and it “needs to be maintained.” He then pointed toward CBS maintaining its editorial independence under the Skydance ownership, which some critics argue otherwise.
The future of the Turner networks and their employees in Atlanta remains unclear. WBD maintains about 3,200 employees at the Techwood campus in Midtown, about 1,000 of whom work with CNN, according to company spokespeople. Though most of its big-name talent is based out of New York City, much of CNN’s technical and production staff and online operations are based out of Atlanta.
Frank Sesno, former CNN Washington D.C., bureau chief who is now executive director of the George Washington University Alliance for a Sustainable Future, said this is the darkest time he can remember for CNN.
“There is so much uncertainty now,” he said. “What will be left of this newsgathering behemoth to actually gather and report the news? What will the additional debt entail? That suggests a lot of budget cutting.”
Paramount launched a hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery in December of last year, after Netflix announced plans to acquire WBD’s studio and streaming business. Paramount submitted a revised offer of $111 billion for the entirety of the company, a bid backed financially by Larry Ellison. In a news release last week, WBD said the Paramount offer was a superior proposal to the one offered by Netflix.
The deal still has to clear regulatory hurdles. On Feb. 26, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a post on X the California Department of Justice has an open investigation and intends to be vigorous in their review. Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, told CNBC Tuesday that Paramount’s bid is “cleaner” than Netflix’s, and he expects it to be approved quickly.
This is the second major merger David Ellison has led in the past two years. In 2024, his company, Skydance Media, merged with Paramount Global. Skydance committed to ensure the new company presents a diversity of viewpoints across the political and ideological spectrum.
Changes occurred at CBS News in the aftermath of the merger. As editor-in-chief, Weiss has shaken up the news division, hiring 19 paid commentators, promoting Tony Dokoupil as anchor of CBS Evening News and postponing a “60 Minutes” segment critical of the Trump administration’s efforts to deport certain undocumented immigrants to an El Salvador prison, though it later aired largely unchanged.
After launching its offer in December, the younger Ellison told CNBC he wants to see a combined CNN-CBS news operation serve as “a scaled news service that is basically, fundamentally, in the trust business” and that speaks to “the 70% of Americans that are in the middle.”
Reilly Steel, a professor of law at Columbia Law School, said there are risks involved when a major news outlet like CNN becomes part of a more consolidated media ecosystem. One is that an editorial stance can be changed in a way that is more favorable to the administration in power. Another relates to what happens when fewer companies control more of the market in any industry.
“That effectively means there are fewer points of entry that the administration needs to put its pressure on to bring some industry under heel,” Steel said.
A new company
In recent days, Paramount has revealed further details about its plans. The two companies will fold their streaming services, Paramount+ and HBO Max, into a single platform, as well as release at least 30 films theatrically each year. Ellison said he has no plans to sell off the cable networks.
Ellison is incrementally releasing details about Paramount’s plans for CNN. In the Thursday CNBC interview, he said CNN, along with CBS, is a brand it wants to transition into the streaming era. This is part of CNN’s current digital strategy.
“We’re going to invest in the news business,” Ellison said to CNBC. “And we think this is going to — this transaction will be a positive for both CBS News and CNN.”
Layoffs are generally expected with mergers of this size, Steel said. Paramount expects the acquisition will produce “$6 billion in synergies,” corporate speak for cost-cutting. In a Feb. 27 call with analysts, David Ellison said the majority of the company’s synergy target comes from “nonlabor sources.” But $79 billion in debt is a lot to incrementally chip away.
How Trump might react to Ellison’s company gaining control of CNN is unclear. Ellison was a guest of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a key Trump ally, at the president’s State of the Union address last month. Late last year, Trump called it “imperative” that CNN is sold, and said the leadership running the organization “are either corrupt or incompetent.”
Since Turner sold his networks, including CNN, three decades ago, the cable news pioneer has maintained its international reach and brand recognition despite multiple owners. Sesno said he isn’t sure if Paramount will continue to invest the money to do so.
“Not to say CNN’s reputation is perfect. It never will be,” Sesno said. “But it has built a capacity to report on any story anywhere, and not a lot of media companies can say that.”
Turner declined to comment through his spokesman.
In a memo sent to staffers last week, CNN Chairman and CEO Mark Thompson told staffers not to “jump to conclusions about the future until we know more.”
“We’re still near the start of what is already an incredibly newsy year at home and abroad, one that will culminate with critical U.S. midterm elections and who knows what else,” Thompson said in the memo. “Let’s continue to focus on delivering the best possible journalism to the millions of people who rely on us all around the world.”
About the Authors
Savannah Sicurella is an entertainment business reporter with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Rodney Ho writes about entertainment for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution including TV, radio, film, comedy and all things in between. A native New Yorker, he has covered education at The Virginian-Pilot, small business for The Wall Street Journal and a host of beats at the AJC over 20-plus years. He loves tennis, pop culture & seeing live events.
