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There you go. An overt technofascist Trump ally will now own CBS, CNN, HBO, Paramount, Warner Brothers, Discovery, and a big chunk of TikTok

As the media coverage of this expands, note how many can bother to mention that this was made possible by trump administration corruption, including a fake Trump DOJ antitrust investigation into the merger's competitive impacts that will now magically evaporate

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the one positive, if there is one, is that nobody at Larry Ellison's weird coalition of nepobabies and brunchlords appears to have any idea what they're doing. And the gargantuan debt load from this deal will be very challenging to navigate.

which means this could end up like the last two-decades' worth of Warner Brothers related mergers stemming from AOL to AT&T. Just a big pile of overvalued enshittification. Things could get worse with a massive wave of consumer defections (😉), and if an AI bubble pop straining Larry's assets.

Not to be a doomer but Saudi or others will just finance whatever debts they incur and help keep the stock propped up no matter how bad the books get cooked There is no need to be profitable with the amount of money they have

It'll be impossible to navigate. Paramount will have to renegotiate the NFL deal, Ellison's kid is hoarding cable channels in an era where cable TV is dying. Even with a bunch of hit movies WBD is losing money.

I am absolutely convinced we need a new age of anti trust monopoly enforcement where we force all of these gargantuan media and tech conglomerates to break up into small chunks. This much power is too concentrated for any one company and doesn’t allow competition to thrive

It’s a good thing they are so incompetent. Incompetence is underrated. At one time I thought it was impossible to make a dent in the cult of the Washington Redskins, and Dan Snyder proved me wrong

If the democrats can overcome this all in 2026 and 2028, they need to institute legislation to break up these media companies in tiny fragments AND use their power to ensure they don't get bought by fascists.

For example there used to be a limit on the # of TV stations a company could own - 3! then 5 - then 7... now you can reach 39% of the country before you get in any trouble... Re: news orgs I think we need an ecosystem of non-profits like AP/proPublica etc. We need to protect the foundations though!