'Antitrust Disaster' Looms as Warner Bros. Shareholders Approve Paramount Megamerger

Less than a year after the controversial marriage of Paramount and Skydance, the combined media company cleared another hurdle to growing even bigger, with Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders on Thursday "overwhelmingly" backing a proposed merger—which sparked fresh criticism of the $110 billion deal.

"Today, Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders voted for their short-term financial gains, not for the public good," declared Free Press co-CEO Craig Aaron. "While shareholders voted against fat pay packages for departing executives—a symbolic rebuke, since the board doesn't have to listen to them—they've opened the door to wholesale layoffs across the news and entertainment industry, more propaganda in news coverage, higher prices for consumers and fewer choices for audiences across the United States and around the world."

"But shareholders don't get the final word," Aaron continued. "That's why we have antitrust enforcers and courts of law."

The Paramount-Warner Bros. deal must be approved by US and international regulators. In an apparent bid to ease that process, Paramount CEO David Ellison—son of billionaire Republican megadonor Larry Ellison—is holding what opponents have dubbed a "corruption gala" honoring President Donald Trump on Thursday.

"With Trump officials cheering on this deal, state attorneys general must investigate this massive industry consolidation and step in to stop Paramount's takeover," Aaron argued. "This megamerger will diminish creativity and diversity in entertainment, weaken journalists' ability to expose wrongdoing and hold those in power accountable, and further endanger our democracy. It also concentrates far too much media power in the hands of one company and one family, the Ellisons."

"This corrupt merger is far from a done deal," he stressed. "Just because Paramount shareholders won't take a stand against billionaire and White House control of the media, it doesn't mean we can't. While Paramount is flaunting its corruption and fêting Trump officials, we're standing with the workers and artists at the heart of the news and entertainment industries—and with the American public, which deserves more than an ever-shrinking circle of control over what they see, hear and read."

Potentially impacted workers are also speaking out. Last week, a group of Hollywood actors, directors, and producers published an open letter blasting the proposed merger. As the Los Angeles Times reported, during a Wednesday press briefing organized by Free Press and other critical groups, Michele Mulroney, president of the Writers Guild of America West, also sounded the alarm.

"This is already an incredibly consolidated industry where writers have seen merger after merger leave fewer and fewer companies in control of what our members can get paid to write," Mulroney said. "A combined Warner Bros. and Paramount would create a media behemoth with tremendous leverage to reduce content, to raise prices, to increase control of production, to suppress member compensation, worsen working conditions, and silence the voices of our members."

As New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared that "this merger should be stopped," Jane Fonda's Committee for the First Amendment led a rally outside Warner Bros.' Manhattan headquarters early Thursday. The group called the shareholder vote "a serious setback—for our industry, for the workers who sustain it, for consumers, and for the fundamental democratic values that depend on a diverse and independent media landscape."

"But this merger is not a done deal—and this fight is far from over," the committee emphasized. "We've seen time and again that sustained pressure works. Efforts to challenge consolidation, from the proposed Tegna-Nexstar Media Group deal to scrutiny of Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster, have demonstrated that coordinated legal, political, and public advocacy can change outcomes, especially when state attorneys general step in to protect the public interest."

"We will continue pressing forward on every front," the group pledged. "A handful of powerful decision-makers should not be allowed to quietly reshape American media, culture, and creative life without accountability. We will keep speaking out for the workers and artists at the heart of this industry, and for the public, which deserves more than an ever-shrinking circle of control over what they see, hear, and read. This fight continues. And we fully intend to win."

Later Thursday, the committee, Free Press, and other organizations—including Common Cause, MoveOn, and Public Citizen—are planning to protest Ellison's dinner for Trump at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC at 5:30 pm ET.