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The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday granted Paramount Skydance’s request to allow Middle Eastern royal families to hold a substantial stake in a merged Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery.

The sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi are slated to indirectly own nearly 50% of the equity in David Ellison’s proposed mega-studio, Paramount-Warner Bros. That will give them a hefty stake in CBS, CNN, Comedy Central, HBO and two historic Hollywood film studios.

Ellison needed FCC approval because the deal will change the ownership structure of CBS.

As part of the Communications Act of 1934, Congress placed restrictions on foreign ownership of broadcast outlets because of concerns about national security. Current rules prevent foreign investors from owning more than 25% of a company that holds a U.S. broadcast license — unless the FCC determines that foreign ownership would serve a public interest.

CBS owns more than two dozen TV stations with FCC licenses, including KCBS-TV Channel 2 and KCAL-TV Channel 9 in Los Angeles.

“Upon review of [Paramount’s] Petition and consideration of the record of this proceeding, we find that the public interest would be served by granting the Petition,” FCC said in its ruling, noting that Paramount has said the proposed ownership changes would “not result in a transfer of control of Paramount.”

Instead, “Ellison family will retain a majority of the voting interests and control of Paramount,” the FCC said.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, an appointee of President Trump, has been supportive of Paramount’s takeover of Warner Bros. Trump and his lieutenants, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, have been cheering for Ellison to control CNN, a Warner property.

Anna M. Gomez, the lone Democratic FCC commissioner, slammed the agency’s decision, saying it “just let some of the most repressive governments in the world indirectly control nearly all of a combined Paramount-Warner Bros.”

“An investment this large in one of America’s biggest media companies doesn’t just buy equity, it secures influence over what gets said and what gets made,” Gomez said. “That’s why I called for this new and novel issue to go to a full commission vote given what’s at stake. Instead, the FCC snuck this ruling out as a staff-level decision, with no public vote and no accountability for a call of this magnitude.”

Ellison’s billionaire father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, in February agreed to personally guarantee the $47 billion in equity needed to buy out Warner Bros. Discovery’s existing shareholders for $81 billion. Ellison and longtime Skydance investor, RedBird Capital Partners, then entered into agreements to assign some of their purchase rights to the sovereign wealth funds.

The funds plan to invest $24 billion in the Paramount-Warner deal. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is set to contribute $10 billion while the Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi’s L’imad Holding Co. will separately add $7 billion.

Paramount has separately lined up debt financiers to help pull off the leveraged buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery — Hollywood’s biggest merger in decades. The deal has been stalled by an antitrust challenge brought by California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and 11 other Democratic attorneys general, representing such states as New York, New Jersey, Colorado, Nevada and Oregon.

The foreign ownership rule was adopted nearly a century ago because members of Congress wanted to make sure that hostile foreign players were barred from using U.S. airwaves to spread propaganda, particularly in times of war.

“We appreciate the FCC’s careful review and are pleased that it has granted Paramount’s petition,” Paramount said in a statement, adding the Trump administration’s Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector had separately recommended approval of the deal, subject to several conditions to protect the data of the company’s U.S. based consumers.

Paramount said that, once the deal closes, the Ellison family and RedBird would “collectively hold the largest equity stake in the combined company and 100% of the voting shares, with no other equity participant having any governance rights.”

Paramount has two classes of stock — an ownership structure that will be replicated in a merged Paramount-Warner Bros.

The Ellison family owns 77.5% of Paramount’s voting Class A common stock. RedBird indirectly holds the remaining 22.5% of the Class A shares. The Ellison family separately has 40% of the non-voting Class B shares.

“At a time when the media industry faces unprecedented competitive pressure from dominant big tech companies, a combined Paramount-WBD will have the scale and resources necessary to compete, invest, innovate, and deliver premium content to audiences worldwide,” Paramount said in its statement.

A prominent Latino group is raising fresh concerns about Paramount Skydance’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, saying the blockbuster deal would crush Latino workers and small businesses that support Hollywood.

In an open letter to California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, the League of United Latin American Citizens urged the state’s top prosecutor to continue his legal fight to block Paramount’s proposed $111-billion takeover of the media company that owns HBO, CNN, HGTV and the Warner Bros. film and television studios.

“No state has more to lose from this disastrous merger … than California,” LULAC National President Roman Palomares and Chief Executive Juan Proaño wrote in the six-page letter sent to Bonta late Sunday.

Thousands of jobs would be lost, and Latino voices could be squelched should the deal go through as it is drawn, the LULAC leaders said.

“The current form of the consolidation would have a devastating and unacceptable impact on Latinos, including those who reside in the Los Angeles community,” they wrote, noting Latinos make up 40% of the state’s population and nearly half of Los Angeles County, where HBO and the Paramount and Warner Bros. studios are based.

At least 4,500 jobs in Southern California would be lost if the merger goes through, according to a 120-page report last week from Los Angeles County’s economic office.

Paramount’s proposed merger has carved deep divisions and become increasingly contentious.

In recent days, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Xavier Becerra publicly pressured Bonta to settle the lawsuit to avoid a drawn-out court fight.

Politicians have been reacting to Paramount’s threat to move its studio, and potentially Warner Bros., from Hollywood to Tennessee or Texas unless Bonta backs down.

Theater owners and two major Hollywood unions — the Directors Guild of America and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees — have joined the parade pleading for a settlement. But the Writers Guild of America and Teamsters have steadfastly opposed the merger, warning about its potential impact on working writers and film crews.

Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison was set Monday to meet Bonta and others representing the 12 states that sued to block the transaction. But Bonta abruptly canceled the mediation session, accusing Paramount of “playing games,” leaking details and making misrepresentations about the talks despite agreeing to keep them confidential.

Paramount later denied that it was the source of the leaks.

Paramount didn’t immediately comment on the LULAC letter, but previously has touted the merger as a way to build a stronger competitor amid a pullback in local production. The company said it would “invest $30 billion annually in production and release at least 30 films a year,” a commitment that would lead to “more jobs over time, and ultimately, a stronger, more durable entertainment industry for generations to come.”

“To have it thrown in your face that Paramount will leave Los Angeles if they don’t get what they want is really just tantamount to a threat … one that will be devastating to Latinos,” Proaño said in an interview with The Times.

“There is a significant number of small businesses — Latino small businesses — and Latino residents, employees and workers that support this industry,” Proaño said. “We’ve been invisible, we’ve been silent — but we wanted to make sure that LULAC is not silent in this moment.”

In its letter, LULAC pointed to Hollywood’s most recent mergers, including Discovery’s 2022 acquisition of WarnerMedia from AT&T, saying such tie-ups underscore how media consolidation tramples over Latino voices, particularly when companies resort to job eliminations and other cost cuts to balance the expense of a corporate takeover.

After Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav took the helm, his company plodded through years of turmoil and massive layoffs. The movie “Batgirl,” which was set to feature a young Afro-Latina as lead actor, was shelved to gain tax benefits. Warner also canceled “Gordita Chronicles,” a TV show about an immigrant Dominican family, despite solid viewership.

Latino families make up “a significant portion of the film and television industry audience,” the letter said, adding that Motion Picture Assn. data show Latinos annually attend more movies per person in theaters than any other demographic group.

“Hollywood returns almost nothing for that loyalty,” the letter said. “Latino characters filled only 5 percent of speaking roles across 1,300 top-grossing films.”

“These and other harms are not collateral to the antitrust case,” LULAC’s letter said. “They are consequences of the diminished competition that will result. Every studio absorbed by a rival is one fewer buyer for a script, one fewer employer for a crew and one fewer distributor willing to bet on a story its franchise slate does not need.”

Warner Bros. Discovery nearly drowned in debt that it took on to finance its $43-billion buyout from AT&T in 2022. Ellison’s proposed Warner Bros. takeover also will be heavily leveraged with nearly twice the debt that resulted from Zaslav’s previous deal.

David Ellison has lined up nearly $80 billion in debt financing to buy out Warner investors. The tech scion is relying on a guarantee from his billionaire father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and $24 billion in equity financing from three Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, representing the royal families of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The deal comes one year after the Ellison family bought Paramount, which had been on the ropes because of significant under-investment over the years.

“Paramount followed the same script: within months of closing its Skydance merger in August 2025, it laid off roughly 2,000 employees, about ten percent of its workforce, just after dismantling its diversity programs earlier that year,” the LULAC letter reads.

“This time, Zaslav’s going to walk away with a billion-dollar parachute and Paramount may end up with these crown jewels assets when it comes to movie-making and television programming,” Proaño said.

Aug. 24 (UPI) — California Attorney General Rob Bonta said he canceled a planned sit-down meeting with Paramount to discuss the company’s attempt to merge with Warner Bros. Discovery after details from an earlier meeting leaked.

Bonta accused Paramount of acting in bad faith in a statement issued Sunday night to The New York Times and Deadline.

“Not only did Paramount leak the alleged substance of settlement discussions, but they misrepresented these discussions, demonstrating a lack of good faith,” he said. “As soon as Paramount stops playing games and engages sincerely, my office is happy to meet again.”

Bonta is one of 12 attorneys general who sued in July to block the proposed $111 billion merger of Paramount and Warner Bros., saying it would undermine competition in the entertainment industry, increase costs for consumers and put jobs at risk.

The lawsuit came one month after the Justice Department approved the planned merger, saying it doesn’t harm consumers in the United States.

State officials met with Paramount representatives on Friday to set the agenda for Monday’s scheduled meeting. California Gov. Gavin Newsom confirmed the meeting happened Friday, Deadline reported. The entertainment news outlet said it learned of the meeting from multiple sources.

The Times reported that state officials and Paramount representatives sought to work toward negotiations after the company threatened to leave California and Newsom said he wanted a settlement in the case.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta abruptly pulled out of a planned mediation session Monday to seek a resolution to the antitrust lawsuit that has stalled Paramount’s blockbuster $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.

Bonta, in a statement, cited Paramount’s alleged leaking and misrepresenting information the two sides discussed during a preliminary session Friday.

Representatives of Bonta and Paramount Skydance came together late last week to set ground rules for Monday’s meeting, which was to involve Paramount Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison.

One of the rules had been confidentiality of the mediation process.

“I have pulled down this meeting,” Bonta said in a statement. “As I have said before, generally for all cases, I prefer to resolve disputes in the boardroom, not the courtroom. As I’ve also said, if the opposing party in litigation wants to meet in good faith to make a sincere effort to resolve the case.”

Bonta went on to say “Not only did Paramount leak the alleged substance of the settlement discussions, but they misrepresented these discussions, demonstrating a lack of good faith.

“As soon as Paramount stops playing games and engages sincerely, my office is happy to meet again.”

This is a developing story.

Paramount Skydance’s proposed $111-billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery could result in 4,500 jobs eliminated in Los Angeles over a three-year period, according to a new report.

Los Angeles County supervisors earlier this year wanted to explore the potential economic impact of David Ellison’s proposed union of two historic Hollywood studios. The report, completed this week by CVL Economics, paints a sobering picture of the potential aftermath of the debt-laden deal, including the prospect of an estimated $1.26 billion in lost wages.

“Los Angeles County’s film and television economy is already undergoing a significant structural contraction,” the report said. “The proposed merger of Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Skydance introduces an additional source of risk into that already changing market.”

California Atty. General Rob Bonta is leading a coalition of 12 states attempting to block the merger on antitrust grounds. A trial has been set for March. Paramount and other groups, including cinema chain owners and some Hollywood unions, have agitated for a settlement to curtail months of uncertainty over whether the deal will go through.

The proposed merger has been controversial in Hollywood due to fears of widespread layoffs. The Writers Guild of America has brought its own lawsuit to thwart the deal.

The goal of the county’s report was to provide “a comprehensive assessment of the merger’s production workforce implications,” amid the ongoing decline of L.A. based film and television production work. Los Angeles has witnessed the elimination of more than 50,000 entertainment jobs since 2022.

The 120-page report, from the county’s Department of Economic Opportunity and Film Office and requested by Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, found that more than 15,000 corporate roles would be at risk, including an estimated 2,495 jobs based in Los Angeles County.

The two companies would have an overlapping workforce within its linear cable channel divisions, film and television studios, streaming operations and corporate functions, including marketing, technology and advertising sales.

“Effects on crews, crafts, post-production personnel, vendors, and production-serving small businesses,” could also be substantial, the report said.

Paramount, in a statement, said the report highlighted the industry’s troubles and made a case for the merger.

“LA County’s own economic report underscores what we have been saying all along: our industry is in decline, production is down and jobs are being lost — and lost for good if we don’t act,” Paramount said. “Our plan to invest $30 billion annually in production and release at least 30 films a year.”

That commitment, Paramount said, would lead to “more jobs over time, and ultimately, a stronger, more durable entertainment industry for generations to come.”

Paramount has received clearances from the U.S. Justice Department and 65 other regulators around the globe to complete the merger.

For now, Bonta’s lawsuit is standing in the way.

Paramount has promised investors the deal would lead to at least $6 billion in cost savings through the consolidation of operations. The company has said the merger would ultimately be good for consumers and workers because a combined Paramount-Warner Bros. would have greater resources to compete with tech giants that are investing heavily in entertainment.

But the report pointed to the high level of debt that Paramount would have to take on — nearly $82 billion — to buy the stock of Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders to finalize the takeover.

“If revenues underperform or planned savings prove more difficult to achieve, pressure to identify additional cost reductions could increase,” the report said.

The two companies already are carrying substantial interest costs due to their existing debt structures. “In the quarter ended June 30, 2026, the two companies reported a combined $712 million in operating income and $737 million in net interest expense,” the report said, meaning that the companies were producing less profit than what was needed to support their debt obligations.

Despite Paramount predicting cost savings and reduction in debt over time, “those savings will take several years to fully realize,” the report said.

David Ellison was hoping to wrap up his $111-billion merger with Warner Bros. by September.

(PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)

Television production in Los Angeles could be especially vulnerable, in large part, because Paramount and Warner Bros. already have moved most of their feature film projects outside of L.A. High levels of TV production continues at Warner Bros. complex in Burbank and Paramount’s and CBS’ soundstages in Hollywood and Santa Clarita.

“The economic impact extends well beyond employment,” with an expected elimination of $547 million in tax revenue, including $78.6 million in local taxes, the report said.

It noted that Warner Bros. and Paramount films were “particularly employment-intensive.”

“Their theatrical releases carry 2.74 times as many screen credits as the average theatrical release, while their streaming films carry twice as many,” the report found.

The document also highlighted a pre-existing pull-back in production at the two studios in recent years — something that Ellison plans to correct.

Paramount was struggling to remain solvent prior to the Ellison family’s purchase of the media company last year. Warner Bros. had scaled back offerings following Discovery’s $43-billion takeover of WarnerMedia in 2022 as it struggled to contain the debt from that deal.

“Between 2019 and 2025, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount accounted for a net reduction of approximately 195 major U.S. releases,” the report said. At the same time, other major distributors combined “added about 67 projects.”

Ellison is looking to finalize his massive Hollywood deal — folding CNN, HBO, TBS, Food Network and the Warner Bros. film and television studios under Paramount — as quickly as possible. He must hold together Paramount’s coalition of financiers and manage rising expenses, primarily legal fees and escalating obligations to Warner shareholders.

The state attorneys general, including from Colorado, Oregon, Nevada, Washington and New York have argued that the blockbuster merger — the largest in Hollywood in decades — would violate the century-old Clayton Antitrust Act.

Paramount hoped the trial over Bonta’s lawsuit would begin in November but U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín set the trial for March 2.

If the deal goes forward, just four studios — a post-merger Paramount-Warner, Disney, NBCUniversal and Sony Pictures — would control 86% of movies that are widely released (in more than 3,000 movie theaters), according to the attorneys general lawsuit. Paramount has argued that projects from Amazon MGM, Netflix and Apple should be included because they compete with the traditional companies for talent and audiences.

Paramount-Warner Bros. would also own more than 50 cable channels, including HGTV, Animal Planet, BET, MTV and Comedy Central.