By Christine Clark
For reporters covering the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, UC San Diego associate professor of communication Shawna Kidman is available to comment on the deal’s broader implications for media competition, labor and the public interest.
Kidman is serving as a pro bono consultant to the California State Attorney General on the merger investigation and has also collaborated with more than 20 media scholars nationwide on public-facing research about the deal’s wider consequences.
What Kidman brings to the conversation goes beyond much of the day-to-day merger coverage. Her work examines how the proposed deal could reshape multiple sectors at once, including concentration in pay TV, television production, film and streaming; increased pressure on independent theaters; the growing market power of combined sports holdings through CBS Sports and TNT Sports; and the effects on local news, media labor and regional economies.
Kidman can speak to why this merger matters not only to Hollywood executives and investors, but also to audiences, workers, policymakers and communities across California and beyond.
See this full Q&A with Kidman.
The Paramount Problem With Hollywood’s Next Big Merger
UC San Diego communication professor Shawna Kidman explains how Hollywood’s next big media merger could have consequences for workers, audiences, news and sports
Should one family control such a vast share of media production and distribution? For UC San Diego associate professor of communication Shawna Kidman, the answer is clear. A scholar of media industries who has closely studied the proposed Paramount–Warner Bros. merger and its implications for policymakers, Kidman says the consequences could reach far beyond Hollywood — affecting independent theaters, news outlets, sports broadcasting and the many local workers and businesses that rely on a healthy media economy.
Kidman and UC San Diego associate professor of communication Andrew deWaard are serving as pro bono consultants to the California State Attorney General on the Paramount–Warner Bros. investigation. They’ve also collaborated with more than 20 media scholars across the country on public-facing research about the potential impact of the merger. The work will be available on MACRO Lab, the research organization Kidman and deWaard founded as part of the Communication Department’s Democracy Lab.
In this Q&A, Kidman discusses why the proposed deal matters not just for the entertainment industry, but for the public at large.
At a basic level, why does the proposed Paramount–Warner Bros. merger matter to the public, not just to Hollywood executives and investors?
This merger will impact anyone who goes to movies, uses a streaming service, watches sports or cartoons, or reads the news. When consolidation like this happens, prices for content go up, and usually, quality goes down. But the impact goes beyond cost, particularly this time. The buyout is coming from Skydance Paramount head David Ellison, the son of tech billionaire Larry Ellison. Together, over just the last few years, they’ve created one of the biggest media, information and data empires in history, one that includes Oracle, TikTok, a vast AI infrastructure, Paramount Studios, CBS, Viacom, Miramax and Comedy Central. With Warner Bros., they would be adding to that not just a 100+ year-old film studio and library, but HBO, CNN, DC Comics and TNT. This is too much content and too much information to be in the hands of one family, in this case a family that has proven to be poor cultural stewards. For example, under Ellison’s leadership, CBS News has faced si gnificant turmoil including widespread reports of political pressure, mismanagement and high-profile firings at 60 Minutes, the network’s flagship news magazine — even after the program experienced significant audience growth.
You mentioned that the effects would ripple far beyond the studios themselves. Who stands to be affected most if this merger goes through?
Companies merge in order to achieve economic efficiencies. In the case of media mergers, those efficiencies usually come in the form of a workforce reduction — thousands of people will lose their jobs – in California, for sure, but also in Atlanta, New York, New Orleans and beyond. And those jobs won’t just belong to actors and writers, but to crews, caterers, electricians, dry cleaners, truck drivers, movie theater workers, and anyone else who benefits from the economic glow of the entertainment industry. In the Communication Department, we have hundreds of students who want careers in media. This merger will shrink the pool of available jobs and not just the entry-level work they’ll be looking for in the short term. For years to come, it will continue to squeeze the job market in journalism, film, digital content and sports media.
Supporters of the merger say it would create a “stronger Hollywood.” From your perspective, what’s misleading about that argument?
It’s standard practice for companies seeking regulatory approval to lobby aggressively in favor of their business plan. So it’s not surprising that Ellison and his team have made a lot of claims about the potentially positive impacts of their acquisition. But their promises about improving the media industry are, at best, vague and unverifiable and at worst infeasible and misleading. For example, David Ellison has personally promised the new company will theatrically release 30 films a year. Given the debt load of the merger, industry trends and on-the-ground realities of production and marketing, he will not be able to keep this promise. And when production levels drop instead of rise, thousands of people will lose their jobs and consumers will find higher prices and fewer choices at movie theaters, which are quickly disappearing. If we wait until that point though, neither the government or the public will have any recourse.
What would your message be to policymakers who are weighing the pros and cons of this merger?
It’s hard for me to see the cons of opposing the merger. It is the job and responsibility of our regulators, legislators, and courts to uphold our laws and protect the public interest. This merger poses a clear threat to that public interest and has, not surprisingly, rallied media workers and media consumers nationwide. People want to see our antitrust laws enforced vigorously and even if there’s not 100% confidence that regulatory challenges will be successful, nothing should stand in the way of taking them forward.
As a professor and director of Undergraduate Studies for the Communication Department and one who played a foundational role in shaping its Media Industries & Communication major; how does this moment help illustrate what students in media industries can learn?
Our media industries are exceptionally dynamic. Big corporate reorganizations, new technologies and changing business strategies are constantly moving the goalposts and reimagining the future. That means that it’s not enough for our media students to study film aesthetics or learn media production or pick up marketing or management skills. If they want to have a long and thriving career, they have to understand the drivers of change in more fundamental ways. We think studying the media industries through history, theory and rigorous analysis is the best way to achieve that understanding.