OAN Commentary by: Adonis Hoffman
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
The debate over whether Paramount should merge with Warner Bros. Discovery is being framed in all the wrong ways. Pundits call it another “mega-merger,” regulators warn of concentration, and critics recycle the old antitrust clichés. What they miss is a far more consequential truth. This is not a contest for control of a studio. It is a contest for control of American culture.
For more than a century, Hollywood has been America’s chief storyteller. Its studios exported not only entertainment but distinctly American ideals—freedom, resilience, redemption. From the plains of Shane to the streets of Rocky and the galaxies of Star Trek, these stories shaped how the world saw us. They were imperfect, commercial, even contradictory—but always unmistakably American.
Now, in the age of streaming and algorithm, that heritage is at risk of dilution and decay.
Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery are the last of the great, independent American studios standing at full height. They have survived wars, depressions, witch-hunts, and revolutions in technology. What they face today is more subtle and arguably more dangerous: a creeping dominance by global technology platforms that distribute everything, dictate terms, harvest data, and decide what the world watches.
Against that scale, no single studio can prevail. It will take unity of purpose to protect the independence of American storytelling. Otherwise, Hollywood becomes a subsidiary of Silicon Valley.
Critics warn that consolidation breeds complacency. In theory, yes. In practice, scale often saves industries from extinction. Airlines consolidated and became safer. Banks merged and became stronger. Telecommunications combined and connected the nation. The goal is not bigness for its own sake, but resilience. Two studios joining resources, libraries, and production power is not monopoly—it is self-defense in a marketplace already monopolized by the digital few. It is, in truth, a moat against extinction.
The antitrust orthodoxy of the 1950s belongs to another world. Today, the greatest concentration of power lies not in content creation but in content distribution.
Amazon controls retail and streaming pipelines. Apple controls devices and app stores. Netflix controls subscriber access in 190 countries. These firms operate with valuations larger than the GDP of mid-sized nations. They are vertically integrated, algorithmically driven, and globally financed.
Against that, even a combined Paramount–WBD enterprise would be a cottage industry. The question is no longer whether they should merge, but whether they can afford not to.
Some fear that such a union would erase competition in Hollywood. The truth is that competition has already migrated—to Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Cupertino—where distribution and data have replaced artistry as the coin of the realm. Hollywood’s fragmentation only benefits the platforms that feed on it. Every weakened studio, every under-funded network, every creative defection to tech deepens the imbalance. A merger that restores parity is not anti-competitive; it is pro-survival.
Economically, the logic is sound. Both companies face rising production costs, volatile advertising markets, and shrinking linear revenues. Combined, they can rationalize overhead, unify streaming platforms, and achieve efficiencies that make creative risk possible again. When studios are solvent, artists experiment. When they are not, accountants rule. Consolidation, guided by vision rather than vanity, funds creativity—it does not stifle it.
The new dynamic adds urgency. Cord Cutters News reports that David Ellison’s Skydance—now Paramount Skydance, or PSKY—is quietly assembling financing, with Apollo Global Management emerging as a likely partner for a $60 billion-plus bid for WBD. Larry Ellison’s immense resources provide credibility, but not infinite patience. Zaslav, still at the helm of WBD, is said to be preparing a split of the company’s assets, a move that could trigger a bidding war and drive valuations beyond reach. Speed now matters as much as capital. Narrative matters even more.
This is where leadership and legitimacy intersect. Paramount’s new general counsel, Makan Delrahim, understands both. He knows the difference between mergers that enhance competition and those that extinguish it. His experience at the Department of Justice gives him the discipline and imagination to craft a structure that can survive scrutiny from regulators and markets alike. With his guidance—and Ellison’s capital—Paramount can produce a model merger: transparent, defensible, and unambiguously pro-American.
There is also the patriotic dimension that rarely finds its way onto spreadsheets. The libraries of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery are national treasures. They chronicle the evolution of the American idea more vividly than many archives in Washington. Within their vaults lie the dreams, delusions, triumphs, and tragedies of a people who believed that stories could change the world. These archives must not be scattered or sold to algorithmic brokers. They are inheritance, not inventory.
Ellison himself seems to grasp this duty. He recently wrote to his employees:
“If we are to move forward, we must find our way back to the ideals that shaped both our country and civilization itself: open exchange of ideas, vigorous yet respectful debate, and a genuine regard for the beliefs and traditions of others. . . . we have both a unique opportunity and an obligation as stewards of one of the most iconic and respected news organizations in the world. We are challenging ourselves to do better – recognizing that we have the ability to reach a broad audience and demonstrate constructive, respectful, and bipartisan dialogue in our own work. Our mission is clear: to ensure that this global platform remains a place where people can seek the truth, gain understanding, and engage with the facts. That is our purpose.”
That vision—creative freedom anchored in civic responsibility—captures what the Paramount-WBD merger could mean if guided wisely.
Regulators who review such a merger should look beyond market-share tables and ask: Who will own the megaphone of American culture ten years from now? Will it be the studios that built it, or the platforms that rent it? Consolidation among storytellers preserves diversity of creation. Concentration among distributors eliminates it.
This proposal is not about Wall Street’s appetite for synergy. It is about whether America will remain the author of its own story. Hollywood once exported democracy through celluloid dreams. It can still do so if it remains whole. The alternative is a marketplace where algorithms decide what is watchable and culture becomes code.
Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery should come together not because it is easy, but because it is necessary. In an era of digital empires and vanishing borders, the defense of American storytelling begins at home. Keeping Hollywood American is not protectionism. It is preservation—of industry, imagination, and identity.
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