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Update: Despite my copyediting, I didn’t notice the mistake in the headline until I pressed send. At least you know this isn’t written by AI.
I am working on some pieces about the impact the slowdown in production in Hollywood has had on the line workers - crew, struggling actors, lower-level writers. I am looking for a few people who are willing to share their story with my readers. You can be identified or not, depending on your comfort level.
If you are interested in participating, please reach out to me at [email protected]. Everything is considered off the record until you tell me otherwise.
Also, today’s reporting is a good reminder that if you can support independent journalism, I have a paid subscriber option which is not only modestly priced ($40 annually), but it also helps you invest in my independent reporting. I think if you compare my reporting today with what you’ll find in the Hollywood trades, I am not just copying other reporters work, I am doing my own original reporting that you won’t read anywhere else.
It’s Not The Number Of Insider Sources That Matter. It’s Where They Work
The hot topic conversation in Hollywood on Friday and now into the weekend centers around what is being reported as a possible breakthrough in negotiations between Paramount and the state AGs over settling the lawsuit that is holding up the planned merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery.
Rumors kicked into high gear after The Wall Street Journal posted a story reporting that California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Paramount are in advanced talks to settle the lawsuit blocking Ellison’s pursuit of Warner Bros Discovery.
The piece itself is fairly brief and this is the only part that identifies any of the topics under discussion by the two sides:
The parties have discussed compromises including Paramount agreeing to operate the two companies’ movie studios separately for a period rather than immediately combining them, the people said.
Because it’s the Wall Street Journal, the reporting received a lot of attention and was re-aggregated by every major media outlet covering the merger talks.
But the piece doesn’t reflect a lot of the other factors in play during the talks, and that’s a big problem if you’re trying to understand the likelihood that an agreement might take place.
Add onto that the problem that the reporting on these negotiations has included a substantial amount of misinformation floating around the talks. It’s turned into a media reporters version of “telephone” and the story gets more convoluted and incorrect the farther away you get from the original sources.
Here are a just a few examples of what I am talking about:
1) The Two Sides May Settle This Weekend.
Perhaps. Honestly, I don’t think even the negotiators on both sides have a handle on whether or not that’s true.
I do think it’s less likely a settlement will take place this weekend because both sides are waiting to see the ruling over Paramount’s request to a federal judge to require the states and the Writers Guild to put up a nearly $1.9 billion bond for challenging the acquisition, with money going to the company if it ultimately wins the case.
It really gets down to how both sides believe the ruling will settle the question. If Paramount wins, it forces the state AGs into an untenable situation and they’ll be forced to settle on Paramount’s terms or drop their case. But if Paramount loses, they will be forced to begin paying that daily ticking fee on October 1st. And that is a burden the company simply can’t afford. As of the most recent quarterly financial report (ending June 30th, 2026), Paramount Skydance reported $1.627 billion in cash and cash equivalents. So using the majority of that to pay months worth of ticking fees is problematical
Paramount is also a company with a current market cap of around $11.5 billion. So being forced to pay a $7 billion kill fee to WBD if the merger collapses is an existential financial threat to the company.
If Paramount loses its bid to get the state AGs to cover the ticking fees, they will be in a significantly weakened position. And while it’s dangerous to predict any legal outcome, merger experts I have spoken with say the worst case scenario for the state AGs is that they are forced to pay a nominal fee, which would be the equivalent of a loss for Paramount.
Which is why you are seeing all of these possible settlement stories surfacing this weekend. Paramount really needs for this lawsuit to go away before the judge’s decision is announced this upcoming week. Because unless Paramount wins everything it is asking for, its position in the talks is substantially weakened.
2) Paramount Is In Settlement Talks With California Officials
Both Paramount and officials in Rob Bonta’s office are framing it this way to reporters because it serves both of their purposes. From the Paramount side, focusing on California makes the merger opposition feel more political. And from Bonta’s perspective, it inserts the AG in the middle of the story.
But it’s important to remember that Bonta is only one of twelve state attorney general’s attached to this case. And while Bonta has naturally taken the lead because of the impact this merger would have on Hollywood, the majority of the other AGs will have to sign off on whatever Bonta helps negotiate. And as I reported weeks ago, some of Bonta’s fellow AGs are a bit concerned about this approach to the negotiations:
"Do I wish he would sometimes sound less like a Hollywood agent and more like a serious litigator?" one AG told me earlier this week. "Sure, but I can suck it up if it means we can win this case and either block this merger or face substantial concessions."
One assistant state AG who asked not to be identified told me their boss has often expressed the concern that Bonta has drunk a bit too much of his own Kool-Aid. But that was a complaint which centered more on optics than the facts of the case.
In fact, I managed to speak on background to about a third of the state attorney generals' or a high-ranking member of their staff, and the consensus was that they would be happy if Bonta was willing to spend a bit less time speaking with the press.
"Someone needs to be making our case to the public," one AG told me in a Signal message. "But it doesn’t always have to be Rob. There are times when I think he's also angling to be on the next season of Dancing With Stars, and that has become a distraction," I was told. "Take a breath, suggest reporters talk to someone else. We can win this case, but only if we stayed focused on the case and not on brand management."
While everyone on the state AG side I have spoken with continues to be circumspect when it comes to criticizing Bonta, even anonymously, I have identified at least four states who aren’t entirely on board with the direction of negotiations right now.
It’s not clear what that means for the prospects of an eventual settlement, but it could definitely complicate the timeline, which then becomes an issue for Paramount.
3) What Terms Are Actually Being Negotiated?
Paramount officials are actively working the press to get the word out about they claim is being discussed by both sides. And because Bonta’s office is the primary source for leaks about negotiations, the conventional wisdom about the state of discussions has become skewed.
Based on what I have heard from multiple sources on both sides in recent days, these are the parameters of what has been discussed:
Among the concessions under consideration is the formation of an editorial board or monitor that would independently oversee CNN. This is one of those ideas that sounds great in principle, but the states are asking for guidelines on who who be on the monitoring board and Paramount is unwilling to agree to any specifics.
Paramount would also agree to spin off some cable networks to lessen its grip during carriage negotiations. From what I can tell, the proposals on this have been all over the board, because neither side can agree on what it would take to restrain Paramount’s grip on the live TV market. It is also complicated by the fact that one of the reasons for the merger in the first place was that it would provide Paramount with leverage it could use during carriage agreements in order to boost revenue it could use to pay down in substantial debt.
Paramount is also offering to keep management of the Paramount and Warner Bros. film businesses independent of each other for a limited period (I am hearing five years, but that's not confirmed). Paramount is also open to agreeing to not move its business outside of Southern California, but has so far been unwilling to commit to a timeline.
The state AGS are looking for a commitment from Paramount not to move production out of the state, attached with penalties if it does so within a specified period. They also are asking for restrictions on the company’s ability to sell either the Paramount or Warner Bros. lot, which would include a demand that a studio lot sale be restricted to a company who pledges to continue production on the lot and not redevelop it for other uses.
Some of the non-California AGs are also looking for assurances the combined company won’t move additional production out of the country, although that particular proposal is complicated enough that it doesn’t appear to be gaining traction.
It’s important to note that all of these items are being discussed. But that doesn’t mean both sides will ultimately agree to them
4) And what about the WGA?
Even in the best of circumstances, WGA board members are skeptical of the press and it can be extremely difficult to get anyone to talk, even off the record.
It is worth remembering that the WGA is party to this legal battle and it would likely have to sign off on any deal.
Honestly, I have a lot more questions than answers about the WGAs role in the lawsuit and no one seems to want to address even the simplest questions. Are WGA negotiators part of these talks? What is the WGA looking for in order to settle with Paramount? Why is the WGA-E apparently picking up the costs for the legal battle? What happens if Paramount settles with the state AGs, but not the WGA?
5) There Is No Guarantee That Settling At This Point Will Be Good Politics For Bonta
In fact, various watchdog groups are already releasing statements arguing against a settlement unless additional concessions are made by Paramount:
“We oppose a weak deal based on unenforceable and empty promises. The reported deal would abandon the thousands of creatives and workers who risked speaking out and the tens of millions of consumers the attorneys general should be fighting for. Let’s be clear: Behavioral conditions do not work. That’s what California’s Rob Bonta has said repeatedly – and he’s right. They won’t save jobs, preserve choice, or prevent price hikes.
“A fake bipartisan oversight committee won’t save CNN. We have all the evidence we need from the Ellisons’ destruction of CBS about what they do to warp journalism at Donald Trump’s request. At a moment when the Trump administration is trying to control and censor news coverage and kick reporters who dare to ask questions out of the White House altogether, blessing an unlawful deal just to hand CNN, HBO and dozens of other channels to the Ellisons is an unforgivable capitulation to the billionaires and authoritarians attempting to take over our media system.
“Here’s what every politician negotiating in backrooms should understand: Americans across the political spectrum are fed up with corruption and consolidation, and with billionaires calling the shots while everyone else struggles. People won’t forget who stood up for them and who capitulated on such disastrous mergers. Standing firm and enforcing the law isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s the politically smart thing, too.”
These are just some of the outstanding questions surrounding the negotiations and I am not a lawyer. So I have no doubt there are difficulties in the process that I haven’t even identified.
My recommendation is to be quite skeptical of any “an agreement may be near” stories this weekend. Those headlines help the PR stance of both sides. But they don’t reflect the reality of what is actually going on behind the scenes.
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Odds & Sods
I have recently posted reviews on TooMuchTV.com of a couple of new shows: the wonderfully Columbo-like Italian cop show Stucky, which is streaming on MHzChoice; and the Netflix documentary The AI Doc: Or How I Became An Apocaloptimist. I also wrote up a short piece on the one-season series M.A.N.T.I.S.
Chefs Amanda Freitag and Scott Conant are launching new weekly cooking series on the All Chewed Up Channel beginning November 7th.
The FBI isn't the only interested party searching for Mary Carole McDonnell, the 74-year-old producer behind TV series like I Married a Murderer. There are the former employees who allege millions in unpaid wages, and the two sons who claim their mother forged their signatures on bank documents.
OWN has ordered an additional two eight-episode seasons of its unscripted series Put a Ring On It: Cheathab.
‘The Best of British TV by BritBox’ Collection Returns to HBO Max
The licensed content package The Best of British TV by BritBox has returned to HBO Max, with more than 100 episodes of British-themed dramas, mysteries, crime thrillers, and comedies are available on HBO Max subscribers in the United States.
The collection includes:
● Blue Lights (Seasons 1–3)
● Death Valley (Season 1)
● The Ex-Wife (Seasons 1–2)
● The Hardacres (Season 1)
● I, Jack Wright (Season 1)
● Luther (Seasons 1–2)
● The Office (Seasons 1–2 and Christmas Specials)
● Outrageous (Season 1)
● Passenger (Season 1)
● Riot Women (Season 1)
● Silent Witness (Seasons 25–27)
● The Sixth Commandment (Season 1)
● Trigger Point (Seasons 1–2)
What’s Coming Tonight And Tomorrow
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH:
America’s Test Kitchen Season Twenty-Seven Premiere (PBS)
Garage Sale Mysteries: Murder Takes the Stage (Hallmark)
Sole Survivor of Flight 119 (Lifetime)
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH:
American Hostage Series Premiere (MGM+)
Best Of VMAs: Unforgettable Moments (CBS)
Cold As Balls Season Premiere (Netflix)
The Detour With David Chang Series Premiere (CNN)
Trespasses Series Premiere (PBS)
Youth Series Premiere (HBO)
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21ST:
Line Of Fire Series Premiere (NBC)
The Voice Season Premiere (NBC)
War Series Premiere (HBO)