Paramount put CNN itself on the table Wednesday. Chief legal officer Makan Delrahim told Politico's California Agenda conference that selling the network is "on the table" to settle the 12-state antitrust suit blocking Paramount's $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery — the deal that would hand David Ellison CBS News and CNN in the same year. Reuters carried the admission within hours; Delrahim went further for Deadline: everything is on the table.
Everything.
The retreat has a price schedule. Ellison set September 30 as his settlement deadline and told senior executives he starts moving company operations out of California on October 1 without one. The same date starts a $7 million-a-day meter — ticking fees owed to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders until the deal closes. The trial lands March 2, 2027, before U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín. Run the meter that long and the fees climb into the billions.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has heard the softer offers — an editorial board for CNN, "internal improvements to journalistic integrity" — and called them "piecemeal promises." He described the case in an August 10 Deadline column as "straight up antitrust enforcement" against a combined company that would control nearly one-third of theatrical film distribution and one-third of basic cable. "Paramount has lost the plot as it continues to lose in court," Bonta wrote.
