Warner Bros Shareholders Approve Paramount's $81 Billion Takeover (apnews.com) 34
Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders have approved Paramount Skydance's takeover bid, moving the massive Hollywood merger a step closer to completion. It's not a done deal quite yet, though, as it still faces regulatory scrutiny and fierce opposition from critics who warn it will further concentrate media power. The Associated Press reports: Per a preliminary vote count Thursday, Warner Bros. Discovery said the overwhelming majority of its stakeholders voted in support of selling the entire business to Skydance-owned Paramount for $31 a share. Including debt, the deal is valued at nearly $111 billion based on Warner's current outstanding shares. That means Warner-owned HBO Max, cult-favorite titles like "Harry Potter" and even CNN could soon find themselves under the same roof with Paramount's CBS, "Top Gun" and the Paramount+ streaming service.
David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, said in a statement that stockholder approval marks "another key milestone toward completing this historic transaction." Paramount added that it looks forward to closing in the coming months, and "realizing the creation of a next-generation media and entertainment company." [...] Meanwhile, Warner shareholders rejected a separate measure Thursday outlining post-merger payments for company executives.
David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, said in a statement that stockholder approval marks "another key milestone toward completing this historic transaction." Paramount added that it looks forward to closing in the coming months, and "realizing the creation of a next-generation media and entertainment company." [...] Meanwhile, Warner shareholders rejected a separate measure Thursday outlining post-merger payments for company executives.
Not really a surprise (Score:5, Informative)
That's kind of the problem with the entire stock system you don't really own much of anything unless you're a very large shareholder. You don't really get say in how the company is run. It's very much a merchant oligarchy. With the big boys making the rules and everyone else hoping they can skate by unnoticed
Re: Not really a surprise (Score:2)
I voted against it. Not surprised it went through.
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The real problem is 401ks and more specifically 401ks using mutual funds as their primary assets.
The reality the public should have a lot of influence in terms of share holder action, given how much of their capital represents the ownership. However thanks Wall Street engineering a system where a large portion of the investment comes from people who will not own the shares directly, they escape public accountability.
Instead the shares and the votes are controlled by Wall Street insiders who can be relied u
Of course? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they approved the deal. Somebody is willing to pay super big bucks for something that doesn't have even close to that level of value.
Re:Of course? (Score:5, Insightful)
Politics disguised as business as usual. A group of rich billionaires wants to lie to the public and is buying up media companies so no one can counter their narrative. So that when the next Epstein scandal hits, no one will hear about it.
Re:Of course? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, Ellison's little Nazi sprog is going to run the entire show. CNN will finally be brought under state control, expect their new division to get knifed.
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Yep, Ellison's little Nazi sprog is going to run the entire show. CNN will finally be brought under state control, expect their new division to get knifed.
If I were the democrats I would be signaling anti-trust investigations and state and federal government divestment away from Oracle.
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It's like the Disney acquisitions. They plan to milk it for all it is worth. Expect lots of low quality slop from your favourite franchises like Star Trek in the next few years, the same way that Disney shat out The Book of Boba Fett. Still, we did get Andor from it, so maybe there will be something worth watching.
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Expect lots of low quality slop from your favourite franchises like Star Trek in the next few years ...
Paramount already holds the rights to Star Trek, and they already did churn out a bunch of bad Trek content (along with some that was surprisingly decent for what it was). They're buying Warner Brothers, which owns the film and TV show rights to Harry Potter, so... probably a bunch of really bad Harry Potter content is coming.
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There was good Harry Potter content?
They tried to sanitizie the movies, but they could only go so far.
$81B is a horrible price (Score:2)
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If they really overpaid for it, there's a chance that the combined entity could end up declaring bankruptcy at some point if the economy gets bad enough to make a serious dent in their gross revenues.
Re: $81B is a horrible price (Score:2)
No, it will open up the door for the Saudi lenders to scoop it up as they continue their scheme reinvesting their oil money into American capital. The Saudis are taking advantage of short-term thinking American capitalists so they can have long-term ownership of our economy.
So I suppose that leaves PBS,CBC,BBC, and Aljazera (Score:4, Insightful)
as reliable news sources as CNN is going to become another Fox News if the deal passes regulatory muster (Trump will be using cattle prods in these regulatory agencies to get the job done)
Next up: The Walls: Bolster the southern Border Wall, Build the Northern Border Wall, and the Great American Firewall.
Then comes the the collection of personal firearms, shortwave jamming stations, harsh penalties for using Satellite Internet, and the full size statues of the president in every square with his right arm at a 45 degree angle and his palm outstreched.
Re:So I suppose that leaves PBS,CBC,BBC, and Aljaz (Score:5, Insightful)
Kewl retort - want to explain to the rest of us? (Score:2)
Most right wing news sources are lazy and racist. For example, they put up a picture of one bad black man, and say all black men are bad. Then they put up one Mexican, and say all Mexicans are bad.
lol ... you've literally never watched Fox News, right?
Because if you had, you'd know that you are spouting not just a lie, but a ridiculous lie?
What's your basis? He made a clear statement. I don't watch Fox News if I can avoid it, so please explain to the rest of us your actual point. You're claiming he's saying a ridiculous lie...he may be, he may not be, but I can't tell a fucking thing about what your point is or what you're getting at. So you want to explain your perspective like an adult, or throw out lame comments like "it's a lie" with no further explanation?
Are they racist or confrontational fearmongers? (Score:3)
Most right wing news sources are lazy and racist. For example, they put up a picture of one bad black man, and say all black men are bad. Then they put up one Mexican, and say all Mexicans are bad. The way that you know that a news source is bad is if they never retract a story, and say that they were wrong. Right wing news never say they were wrong, they just attack, attack, attack. It seems to me that MAGAs are just racists, who don't care about issues that affect their own lives, like gas prices, food prices, their health care, as long as they "own" someone, and can identify some minority group to hate.
Is right wing media actually racist...or just confrontational? From what I've seen, the point of right wing media is to be confrontational and combative to whatever the audience is angered by. Isn't that the point of conservatism, by textbook definition? A textbook conservative thinks the world is on the wrong course and wishes to revert to older ways. If you were happy with the world, you wouldn't be a conservative nor a liberal...just content with the status quo. Conservatism is negative by nature.
Re:So I suppose that leaves PBS,CBC,BBC, and Aljaz (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Better a ruzzkie than a Democrat" has been a key philosophy among the voters of the former republican party for years.
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And before that it was "Better Dead than Red"
But they have memories even shorter than their logical abilities are useful.
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Not at all. We are just smart enough to recognize that contemporary Democrats have more in common with the old Soviet Union than modern Russia.
It is still better dead than red, except red happens to be blue now, and we have to adapt to our so called neighbors representing a more clear and present danger to our nationals welfare than an evil empire on the other side of the world ever was...
Re: So I suppose that leaves PBS,CBC,BBC, and Alja (Score:2)
"and we have to adapt to our so called neighbors representing a more clear and present danger to our nationals welfare than an evil empire on the other side of the world ever was..."
If only maggots had self awareness.
Ha ha - Paramount got baited (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact the initial deal happened without any sort of public process, that makes me think that Netflix and Warner colluded to bait Ellison / Paramount into this.
Warner gets more $$$$, Netflix gets a weakened Paramount and a 2.8 billion payday. And Paramount gets a $60 billion prize it had to pay $81 billion for and now has to handle regulatory hell over.
I think Netflix had no intention of ever buying Warner Brothers. I think they totally baited Paramount.
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Netflix had been a lifeline to WB / Discovery, leasing a lot of Discovery's illiterati TV schlock. They carried the content because it's cheap and widens their audience. When you look at the aggregate content Netflix the
Fuck Ellison (Score:4)
Terrible person buying influence for terrible reasons.
Boycott if Merger Happens (Score:2)