The British government suggested Tuesday it may challenge Paramount Skydance’s blockbuster $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, a merger that has drawn scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Lisa Nandy, the British culture and media secretary, expressed concerns about concentrating “control” of media assets in the hands of fewer corporate owners.
“Following engagement with the parties and independent research, my department has today written to the current and proposed owners of Warner Bros Discovery on my behalf to inform them that I am minded to intervene,” she said in a statement.
In the statement, Nandy highlighted the need to ensure “a sufficient plurality of views in news media” and “a sufficient plurality of persons with control of the media enterprises, or the enterprises providing on-demand program services.”
She set a July 6 deadline for the companies to reply.
In response to a request for comment, a Paramount spokesperson said: “We are grateful for the continued constructive engagement with all interested government bodies and relevant authorities, including in the UK.”
“We are confident that our proposed transaction does not pose any media plurality issues in the UK and remain confident in our stated transaction timeline,” the spokesperson added.
Separately, the top British antitrust watchdog continues to carry out a review of how the proposed merger would affect the country’s economic competition and media consumers.
The Competition and Markets Authority is set to announce the next steps in that investigation in early August.
The U.S. Justice Department has already cleared Paramount’s tie-up with Warner, a union that would put two historic Hollywood film studios and a sprawling portfolio of television assets under the same roof.
The Justice Department’s antitrust division, in an unusually lengthy statement earlier this month, said “the transaction is not likely to result in harm to competition or American consumers.”
The acquisition still faces scrutiny from state attorneys general across the United States, who could sue to block the deal. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has said his office is investigating the transaction, and New York Attorney General Letitia James is doing the same, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Paramount’s holdings include the CBS broadcast network, a suite of cable channels and the Paramount+ streaming service. Warner is the parent company of HBO, CNN and intellectual property like the Batman franchise.
In the United Kingdom, the combined company would also control Channel 5, one of just four primary public service broadcasters.
Paramount Skydance is run by the 43-year-old mogul David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder of the technology firm Oracle and an ally of President Donald Trump, who has called for new ownership of CNN.
The proposed merger has divided Hollywood’s rank and file, with more than 5,500 actors, directors, producers and screenwriters signing an open letter opposing it. They have warned consolidation would lead to fewer buyers for film and television content, shrink the pool of jobs and spike costs for consumers.
Paramount has repeatedly touted the benefits of the transaction, and Ellison has attempted to reassure Hollywood’s creative community by promising to put 30 movies a year in theaters.
