The Supreme Court denied a last-minute bid by streaming subscribers seeking to block Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. just hours before the megamerger was expected to close on Tuesday.
Monday’s longshot emergency application, addressed to Justice Elena Kagan, sought to keep the companies separate while the court considers reviewing a challenge filed by a group of Paramount subscribers. Without the high court’s intervention, the merger is expected to continue, solidifying the two film studios — as well as CNN, CBS News, TBS, HGTV, Paramount+ and HBO — under one company.
“Closing will not merely change a stock ledger,” the applicants wrote in their request. “Once independent pricing, programming, release, newsroom, technology, employment and investment decisions are centralized, later relief cannot restore the period of competition that was lost.”
Within a matter of hours, Kagan denied the emergency appeal without comment.
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The lawsuit, initially filed in April, alleged that the acquisition would eliminate competition between businesses that currently vie for consumers’ money and attention. In their Monday filing, the consumers pleaded with the Supreme Court to review their case, arguing that U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin overlooked evidence already in the record, including Paramount’s own plans to lay off employees.
Lower courts had already tossed other efforts by consumers to slow the deal. Last week, Martinez-Olguin approved a settlement agreement between Paramount, the Writers Guild of America and 12 states challenging the acquisition, resolving the monthslong deadlock over the merger.
In exchange for letting the deal move forward, Paramount Skydance must spend at least $1.5 billion domestically to produce a minimum of 30 film releases each year. The settlement also includes protections for editorial independence at CNN and CBS News and creates safeguards against writer layoffs.
Lina Khan, the Federal Trade Commission chair under President Joe Biden, said that such fail-safes in high-stakes antitrust cases often fall short of protecting the markets.
“Behavioral remedies routinely fail, and the stakes here are particularly high given that a strong democracy requires open markets for sound journalism and creative expression,” she wrote on X last month.
According to a Paramount filing, layoffs will soon hit workers in Hollywood. The company is mostly looking at nonunion corporate and desk jobs where duties overlap, but officials said they also plan to cut production for some film and television titles.
The newly merged company will be named Skydance, led by David Ellison alongside co-CEO Ynon Kreiz. Paramount has already projected more than $6 billion in savings and approximately $79 billion in net debt, while the younger Ellison has argued that combining streaming operations would strengthen competition with Netflix.
Kriez said Monday that the merger will make Skydance the leader in the global media market by building “the most technologically capable media company” and “capitalizing on our scale, assets and global reach.”
The transaction also carries political stakes: President Donald Trump, who shares close ties with the Ellison family, has publicly demanded new ownership for CNN, a network he frequently assails for critical coverage. Trump recently barred CNN reporters from accessing the White House.
“I think the people that have run CNN for the last long period of time are a disgrace. I think it’s imperative that CNN be sold,” Trump told reporters in December. “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’s Justice Department closed its merger investigation in June, concluding that the deal was “unlikely to harm” competition or consumers.
Paramount announced Monday that CNN chief Mark Thompson would remain in charge of the network as the company prepares to bring it under the same ownership as CBS News.
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