The Mountain Wrecker

 I have seen a madman completely destroy a major American institution to build a bloated, gaudy monument to themselves thanks to billionaire friends largely flipping the bill. 

But this article is not about what the Administration has done to the White House. 

This is about how David Ellison destroyed Paramount to create a media empire that conservatives have only dreamed about thanks to his billionaire daddy largely flipping the bill, radically changing CBS News into a conservative-leaning propaganda group and canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. 

Even after that, he wants to buy a second, much larger media company, Warner Bros Discovery, to solidify himself as the Big Media Thanos that rules Hollywood and the complete backing of the Administration.

Let me be abundantly clear. 

I don’t want ANYBODY to buy Warner Bros Discovery. At all. 

I don’t want Comcast to buy them. I don’t want to see a tech company like Netflix, Amazon, or Apple to buy them.

And I really don’t want Skydance to buy Warner Bros Discovery. 

I don’t want Skydance to buy ANY part of Warner Bros Discovery. Not The Warner Bros Company. Not even Discovery Global. At all.

I’m not a fan of corporate mergers because they always hurt the consumers as well as the workers. At the time I began writing this story, Paramount Skydance… you know what? For the sake of this article, I’m just going to call the Ellisons’ company Skydance. As I was saying, when I started writing this, Skydance started firing people at the combined company, even though Skydance was much, much, MUCH smaller than Paramount, so it’s no surprise that the bulk of the 1000+ workers who lost their job came from the Paramount side of the company. Another round of firings, which will also be more than 1000 workers, is coming within days. 

At the time I started writing this article, there were three offers that Skydance made towards Warner Bros Discovery, all of which were rebuffed immediately.

Yet, every business and Hollywood news rag have asked why WBD didn’t agree to any of those offers. It’s because they were terrible offers, did nothing to ensure the survival of the Warner Bros Discovery brand, gave no ownership or official roles to the heads of WBD, offered no security for the WBD stockholders who know the Ellisons would rather privatize their company than be beholden to the stockholders, and completely demeaning and disrespectful to the full value of the brand, which is worth FAR more than Paramount is.

Also, I think they’re purposely asking the wrong question.

They should be asking why is David Ellison so hellbent on wanting to buy Warner Bros just a few months after completing his purchase of Paramount Global. 

You need to understand WHY Skydance wants to buy WBD even though Skydance now owns a major Hollywood studio (Paramount Pictures), a major television production studio (CBS Studios), a pay-tv channel group (Showtime), a major streamer (Paramount+), a leading kids media brand (Nickelodeon), a sports media brand (CBS Sports), a major news organization (CBS News), and various cable brands (MTV, Comedy Central,  BET, CMT, and Paramount Network) in addition to a major broadcast network (CBS).

Skydance doesn’t need a SECOND major Hollywood studio (Warner Bros Pictures), a major television production studio (Warner Bros Television), a pay-tv channel group (HBO), a major streamer (HBO MAX), a leading kids media brand (Cartoon Network), a sports media brand (TNT Sports), a major news organization (CNN), and various cable brands (Adult Swim, TBS, TNT, TCM, and the Discovery networks).

Under any other circumstances, the mere thought of the Ellisons buying TWO major media companies within months of each other would be unfathomable, and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. 

And let’s keep it a buck, David’s using his father Larry’s money and political pull to get these deals through. 

The fact that we are having this conversation, and the fact that conservatives, especially the current Administration, wants such concentration in media as well as silencing voices critical of the Administration, not to mention the additional thousands of jobs that would be eliminated if such a deal happened, should tell you everything you need to know about why it’s bad for everybody.

The overlapping units would be disqualifying to ANY global trade commission. No one in their right mind would think that one company would own TWO major film and television studios, TWO premium streamers, TWO major news organization, and TWO major sports media groups without any concessions. People love to bring up Disney’s purchase of the non-broadcast, news, and sports units of 21st Century Fox and fail to acknowledge that 20th Century Fox Pictures is a shell of its former self. It essentially took over Touchstone’s place at Disney. Plus, Disney shut down Blue Sky Animation outright because, well, they weren’t Disney or PIXAR. 

Disney literally got rid of a competing studio, and we’re all supposed to be okay about that, so why would anybody in their right mind trust someone like Skydance to keep ANY Warner Bros Discovery unit intact? David Ellison is acting like he already owns the company and wants to shut down HBO Max and put everything on Paramount+, which has FAR FEWER SUBSCRIBERS than HBO MAX.

Seriously, the owner of HBO’s biggest competitor, Showtime, wants to shut down HBO.

Digest that for a minute.

Why would you think he’d keep Cartoon Network when he has Nickelodeon? Why would you think he’d keep Adult Swim when he has Comedy Central? Why would you think he’d keep CNN when he owns CBS News? Why would you think he’d keep TNT Sports when he owns CBS Sports? Why would you think he’d keep Warner Bros when he has Paramount Pictures and CBS Studios? 

This is utter destruction, and the usual fanboys thinking about “Ooh, SpongeBob could air on Cartoon Network, Adventure Time could finally air on Nickelodeon, and South Park could air on Adult Swim! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles could be part of the DC Universe!” and other fanboy BS are, once again, being stupid and not understanding that one company wants to destroy another by buying them outright. 

Destroying a major Hollywood studio just because they have the money to buy them and the political pull to allow them to buy it in the first place is something everybody who loves entertainment shouldn’t support or allow to happen.

And do you want to know the worst part about what the Ellisons are attempting?

They made me want to root for the fricking Murdochs.

You know. That other conservative-friendly media oligarch-led family that pretty much owns most of the major newspapers in the English-speaking world as well as the biggest news channel in the country, FOX News, which has done more irreparable damage to the world than any media company before it. But even they would be a much better owner than the Ellisons. 

And the Murdochs would keep everything at Warner Bros Discovery intact.

I feel this way because the Murdochs’ primary media company, FOX Corp, is not the 21st Century FOX of old. Yes, they own a news organization (FOX News), a broadcast channel (FOX), and a sports media group (FOX Sports), but their entertainment units are smaller by comparison. They own animation house Bento Box Entertainment and MarVista Entertainment.  

There literally wouldn’t be any major superfluous units that would really cause alarm for regulators. FOX Corp doesn’t own a major Hollywood studio, a major television production studio, a pay-tv channel group, a leading kids media brand, and various cable brands. While FOX does owns a trio of streamers (the popular AVOD service Tubi, the premium FOX ONE, and, ugh, FOX Nation), they don’t own anything comparable to HBO MAX. Even its sports division, FOX Sports, doesn’t totally clash with TNT Sports. 

The only thing that most antitrust folks would have concerns about is FOX owning both FOX News and CNN. To be honest, considering Warner Bros Discovery is planning to splinter off CNN into the Discovery Global division, losing CNN really isn’t a deal-breaker for me at this point, especially given how the Ellisons literally wants to combine two huge media companies into one.

I know I’m sick of having to pick the lesser of two evils, but if given the choice between the Ellisons and the Murdochs, I’d rather have the Murdochs own Warner Bros. 

I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen here. Much like everything that’s been happening since January 20, 2025, I have no idea what destruction these companies who want to consolidate media power will do next. They clearly have a target on Warner Bros Discovery, but that bullseye was clearly painted on by their myopic and greedy CEO David Zaslav. Right now, we see he’s continuously rejecting these offers. Whether or not it’s because he really against Skydance buying the company outright or he just wants a bigger payday and opportunity to play a leadership role afterwards is debatable, and I’m not in any rush to see him as the good guy here. 

Regardless, more individuals should be against Skydance’s attempts to buy Warner Bros Discovery. Every Hollywood union, every global acting, directing, and writers union, every craft and labor union, and every consumer and trade group should be against this purchase attempt. Fewer outlets to allow a myriad of voices to share their stories helps no one.  This Administration wants to keep voices the President don’t like out of the public, which is why he wants this to happen. 

We can’t allow that.

Freedom of choice and competition should continue to be a vital part of the entertainment industry, and with the consolidation of the industry limiting those choices and competitions should be averted and shunned by all of us.  

And I will be damned if I see another part of our collective legacy be destroyed by another billionaire with a mountain-sized excavator.