Enough about the ticking fee.
In the 11 days since Paramount Skydance agreed to delay its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery until June 2027 or the resolution of antitrust lawsuits brought forth by 12 state attorneys general, including California’s Rob Bonta, I’ve witnessed a lot of celebrating; the proverbial champagne corks popped. And while I appreciate the sentiment after a long stretch of hopelessness, it is my duty to put things into perspective.
Starting with that roughly $650 million fee, which Paramount Skydance must pay every quarter if the deal isn’t closed by the end of September…
Yes, I know, $7 million a day is a lot for you and me.
If I got handed a bill for a week of that, I’d definitely be looking to sneak out the back door.
But the Ellisons aren’t you and me.
Say they have to pay the full $650 million for four quarters, so they add on $2.6 billion to the total. A big number, yes. But that adds a little over two percent onto the price tag of this $111 billion deal.
Two percent more doesn’t make this fall apart.
So while I am heartened and amazed that we’ve gotten to where we are, and I don’t want to throw cold water on the party, we need to look at the road from here realistically and understand that nothing happens automatically or easily.
The mistake is thinking this is simply a Hollywood acquisition whose economics can be measured against a ticking fee. Warner Bros. is tied into something much larger, an octopus that wraps together Oracle’s AI ambitions, Gulf capital, TikTok, Trump — and, most of all, CNN. That is why the Ellisons are not walking away unless a court forces them — and even then, not without all-out war.
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