David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance reportedly has the best chance in the brewing bidding war to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery due to an unlikely advantage: CNN.
The bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery kicked into high gear last week with Paramount Skydance, Comcast, and Netflix leading the charge. According to the New York Post, Paramount Skydance has the best pitch due to Larry Ellison and CEO David Ellison’s eye on CNN with an aim to buy the studio’s cable-news subsidiary.
“They see CNN, warts and all, as a very profitable business worth saving,” noted the Post. “Trump, meanwhile, desperately wants CNN — whose correspondents regularly spar with him at the White House and on Air Force One — ‘neutralized’ out of its anti-MAGA coverage, one top broadcast executive recently told.”
“And in his thinking, Larry Ellison, the billionaire Trump donor who is co-founder of software giant Oracle, is the perfect vehicle to set CNN straight,” it added. “Specifically, Trump wants the Ellisons to do to CNN what they are doing with their CBS subsidiary after hiring Bari Weiss, the right-of-center columnist who is under orders to squeeze left-wing bias out of its news programming.”
Bari Weiss could potentially include CNN as being part of her editorial oversight should Paramount Skydance win the bidding war.
“The Ellisons will get the white-glove treatment and an easy 6 months before approval,” one telecom lawyer told the Post.
“Brian Roberts [Comcast] gets a proctology exam that could last two years. Same with Netflix. The Warner board might just say it’s not worth the wait,” the lawyer added.
Insider reports say that the Ellisons actually view CNN as a viable business model due to its global reach with reporters and correspondents in nearly every country. Despite its issues in the current marketplace, it still makes $500 million in yearly profits.
Paul Roland Bois directed the award-winning Christian tech thriller, EXEMPLUM, which has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes critic rating and can be viewed for FREE on YouTube, Tubi, or Fawesome TV. “Better than Killers of the Flower Moon,” wrote Mark Judge. “You haven’t seen a story like this before,” wrote Christian Toto. A high-quality, ad-free rental can also be streamed on Google Play, Vimeo on Demand, or YouTube Movies. Follow him on X @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.
