CBS News and CNN staffers fear ‘disaster’ as Paramount wins Warner Bros battle | US television industry

Netflix’s decision to walk away from its $83bn bid for Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) has left some staffers working at CBS News and CNN panicking about the future as the two top-tier news operations come under the same roof.

With Paramount Skydance emerging as the winning bidder, a deal that still requires the approval of WBD shareholders and government regulators, they fear the merging of the two networks – and, with it, the potential for a significant amount of job cuts. Some CNN employees are also nervous about Paramount’s Trump-friendly ownership and leadership enacting ideologically driven programming changes at the network, with particular concern about the specter of CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss possibly getting a significant role.

Weiss, a conservative commentator turned media entrepreneur with no previous television industry experience, has had an uneven tenure at CBS since she was appointed editor-in-chief last October. Her path to the job was paved by concessions that David Ellison and his Skydance Media made to gain the support of Trump-picked regulators to acquire Paramount.

“A Paramount WBD merger is a disaster for the people who work at both companies, and if Bari Weiss takes control of CNN, it will be the end of the global network Ted Turner founded,” one concerned CNN producer – who was not authorized to comment – told the Guardian. “I don’t think that’s hyperbolic.”

Turner, a billionaire media entrepreneur, revolutionized TV news when he founded the 24-hour, all-news channel in 1980.

A second CNN staffer had a more measured reaction, saying that “because CNN is so big and makes so much money, it was always going to attract the Ellisons”.

Multiple CBS News staffers who were not authorized to speak to the media resorted to curse words after reading the news. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” said one producer at the network. “Well, fuck,” said another CBS News staffer.

A third CBS News staffer said they expected their department to be cut if the network is merged with CNN and duplicative services are cut, as is standard for media mergers.

Paramount’s victory would add not just CNN but also Warner’s prestigious HBO network to its portfolio. As well as hit shows including Succession and Game of Thrones, HBO is known for its award-winning documentaries.

“[Paramount Skydance chief executive David] Ellison will readily throw the first amendment, CNN’s reporters and HBO’s film-makers under the bus if they stand in the way of expanding his corporate empire and fattening his pockets,” predicted Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “But censorship is bad for business. WBD executives and shareholders should recognize that selling companies that depend on the first amendment to a censorial White House puppet is not only morally wrong but harmful to their bottom line.”

WBD chief executive David Zaslav took a more positive tone, saying in a statement that the merger “will create tremendous value for our shareholders”.

WBD is scheduled to hold a global town hall for employees late on Friday morning. In a Thursday evening memo to CNN employees obtained by the Guardian, chief executive Mark Thompson urged them to not jump to conclusions about what the acquisition would mean for the network.

“Despite all the speculation you’ve read during this process, I’d suggest that you don’t jump to conclusions about the future until we know more,” Thompson wrote. “And secondly, let’s not forget our duty to our audience. We’re still near the start of what is already an incredibly newsy year at home and abroad, one that will culminate with critical US midterm elections and who knows what else.

“Let’s continue to focus on delivering the best possible journalism to the millions of people who rely on us all around the world.”

Donald Trump, a long-time critic of CNN, said in December that the cable network should be part of any sale of WBD – and that the winning bidder should oust the network’s leadership. Netflix had secured a deal to acquire only the studio and streaming assets of the company; and if the streamer’s deal had gone through, CNN and WBD’s other television networks would have been spun off into a new entity called Global Networks.

“I don’t think the people that are running that company right now, and running CNN, which is a very dishonest group of people, I don’t think that should be allowed to continue,” Trump said at the time, adding that the network’s ownership “have run CNN into the ground”.

CNN staffers expressed concern after the Guardian reported in November that Larry Ellison, the largest shareholder of Paramount Skydance and a friend of the president, had spoken with a White House official about potential changes that could be made at the network if it fell under his family’s ownership. Ellison discussed the possibility of axing some of the CNN hosts that have attracted Trump’s ire, including Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar, according to people familiar with the matter.

During an interview on CNBC in December, David Ellison acknowledged having recent conversations with Trump that touched on CNN. “We’ve had great conversations with the president about this … but I don’t want to speak for him in any way, shape or form,” he said at the time.

But, while officials in the Trump White House have long preferred Paramount Skydance to Netflix as owner of WBD, the merger will still have to go through a regulatory process led by the antitrust division of the Department of Justice. There could also be legal challenges from state attorneys general, meaning that a potential merger of the two networks – and the foreshadowed changes at CNN – could still be a long way off.

In a post on X, Alvaro Bedoya, a former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, expressed concern about the vast portfolio of assets that will be controlled by the Ellison family. “Block this rotten deal,” he wrote.