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The Wild Card in Trump's Attempt to Control the News by David Dayen
The attempted censorship of Stephen Colbert’s late-night interview with Texas’s U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico backfired so completely, with millions watching the interview on YouTube, that it may have made Talarico more likely to win his Democratic primary against Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Yet regardless of how you feel about the electoral outcome, the episode is another example of David Ellison and the new ownership at Paramount, parent company of CBS, signaling its intention to use one of the nation’s major broadcast networks as a tool for the Trump regime, with only sanctioned content going out over the airwaves.
That’s always been the fear associated with Paramount’s numerous attempts to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), parent company of CNN. If that ever went through, the majority of the nation’s main cable news networks would be in the hands of conservative partisans. While I’m not sure cable TV—including cable news—will even be around in a few years, partisan control of the communications infrastructure is what authoritarian regimes do to manage their populations. Regardless of the chances of success, this is the clear intent: to MAGA-ify the news.
The Talarico backlash suggests that, in an era of splintering television audiences, multiple distribution channels, and diminishing trust in traditional media, the Trump-Ellison gambit might not work. Similarly, what looks like growing attempts at the federal level to stage-manage a WBD sale to Paramount also have a fatal flaw, tied to the decentralized nature of antitrust enforcement. Simply put, state attorneys general can and likely will sue to block any attempted Paramount-WBD merger, no matter how Trumpworld plots to get it done.
Those who believe that Paramount’s acquisition is inevitable got new fuel this week, when Warner Bros. reopened deal talks, despite agreeing to a $72 billion offer to sell itself to Netflix. Paramount initially offered $30/share to buy all of WBD, including its cable channels like CNN, TNT, and TBS. (Netflix is only seeking the Warner Bros. studio, pay-TV stalwart HBO, and its streaming entity HBO Max.) But Paramount hinted it would increase its bid to at least $31/share if talks resumed, and also promised to pay the $2.8 billion termination fee due to Netflix if WBD backs away from its deal with the streaming giant.
That’s always been the fear associated with Paramount’s numerous attempts to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), parent company of CNN. If that ever went through, the majority of the nation’s main cable news networks would be in the hands of conservative partisans. While I’m not sure cable TV—including cable news—will even be around in a few years, partisan control of the communications infrastructure is what authoritarian regimes do to manage their populations. Regardless of the chances of success, this is the clear intent: to MAGA-ify the news.
The Talarico backlash suggests that, in an era of splintering television audiences, multiple distribution channels, and diminishing trust in traditional media, the Trump-Ellison gambit might not work. Similarly, what looks like growing attempts at the federal level to stage-manage a WBD sale to Paramount also have a fatal flaw, tied to the decentralized nature of antitrust enforcement. Simply put, state attorneys general can and likely will sue to block any attempted Paramount-WBD merger, no matter how Trumpworld plots to get it done.
Those who believe that Paramount’s acquisition is inevitable got new fuel this week, when Warner Bros. reopened deal talks, despite agreeing to a $72 billion offer to sell itself to Netflix. Paramount initially offered $30/share to buy all of WBD, including its cable channels like CNN, TNT, and TBS. (Netflix is only seeking the Warner Bros. studio, pay-TV stalwart HBO, and its streaming entity HBO Max.) But Paramount hinted it would increase its bid to at least $31/share if talks resumed, and also promised to pay the $2.8 billion termination fee due to Netflix if WBD backs away from its deal with the streaming giant.
https://prospect.org/2026/02/19/trump-warner-bros-netflix-paramount-cnn-hbo-stephen-colbert/]