Another day, another consolidation.
Yesterday, Fox announced plans to buy Roku for $22 billion. The deal, if and when closed, will make Lachlan Murdoch’s company the third-largest television distributor in the U.S., according to Nielsen’s metrics, behind only YouTube and Netflix.
The combined Fox-Roku will drop to fourth in the rankings, however, if and when Paramount completes its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
It might be a good time to go back and read what I wrote last month about fin-syn.
Consider again the climate in which this is happening — with the support of the tinpot would-be autocrat in the White House, media consolidation, long headed in this direction, is now on the very fast track.
Remember, in modern history, there has been only one merger of a major studio into another – and that previous occasion (Disney/Fox) also occurred during a Donald Trump administration, to the benefit of a major Trump supporter. (In that case, Rupert Murdoch.)
For those who think that this is the natural functioning of a capitalist economy, remember that these mergers have not happened, except under Trump administrations, to the benefit of a Trump supporter, who in turn does all he can to benefit him right back.
The Hollywood tale of consolidation is playing out as another chapter of the tech bros’ ingestion of the entire economy. Just look at what happened last week: Elon Musk — thanks to borderline corrupt shenanigans around the SpaceX IPO — is on track to become the world’s first trillionaire. He will personally have vacuumed up about 3 percent of the national GDP.
That’s just one of them, and it shows what you can do when you’ve got no principles and a compromised American government in your pocket.
Two weeks ago, I wrote about Bari Weiss’ CBS News trainwreck as a sort of signaling exercise of the great consolidation underway — with Weiss playing her part, wittingly or unwillingly, to win the good graces of the White House for Paramount, Oracle and the Ellison family.
But one paragraph I wrote and more or less glossed over has stayed with me — haunted me. It’s obsessed me with the idea that we here in Hollywood, where much of this is playing out, have a duty to sound every possible alarm bell.
Starting yesterday.
I wrote:
Even after Trump leaves the White House, imagine a world where America’s biggest companies are willing to do anything — anything — for a candidate willing to open up the Federal cookie jar.
Assuming the deal goes through, we will be looking at a world in which Apple, Amazon, Warners (including CNN), Paramount (including CBS News), TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter/X are all in the hands of leaders who have shown explicit, active willingness to be Trump allies.
Now imagine it is the next election, and this little cadre gets together behind another candidate who understands the deal and promises to be a little more stealthy about it.
And they decide, this time, let’s go all out.
I want to repeat that, because I don’t think we’re really swallowing what’s happening here.
Apple, Amazon, Warner Bros., CNN, Paramount, CBS News, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter/X will be in the hands of six (6) CEOs.
And all of them, in various ways, have profited or stand to profit enormously from a warm relationship with Trump.
Last week, it was Elon’s newly found trillion.
This week it was…
…where David Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg happily joined the fun at ringside.
Remember When
When Trump was first elected, it set off years of hand-wringing about how Facebook might have allowed its algorithm to be manipulated by others to surface pro-Trump stories in users’ feeds.
That was the big scandal.
That frankly looks quaint compared to what could happen now, what could already be happening for all we know.
Outside groups might have gamed the algo… we might as well be complaining that one of the candidates didn’t take his hat off when he came into the convention center; that they placed the soup spoon inside the teaspoon at a White House state dinner.
Set the news divisions aside — and frankly they are by far the least important part of all this, even as journalists give the plight of fellow journalists 98 percent of their scrutiny. Imagine if the four people who run TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter/X — all of whom are deep in the Trump orbit — decide to lean on their platforms in the run-up to an election.
I’ll tell you the first thing that would come of that…
Don’t stop here
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One last thing: Tomorrow on Rushfield Lunch, my chat with Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri to discuss the upcoming Minions & Monsters and the artistry and process that go into bringing an Illumination film to light. Watch live on YouTube at 11 a.m. PT. See you then!
