Attorney General Dan Rayfield issued a statement today after a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order blocking Paramount Skydance Corporation’s proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
“This proposed merger could mean real harm for Oregonians—for working families who will see higher costs and fewer options, for the small businesses and workers in our film and TV industry, and for our local movie theaters,” said Attorney General Rayfield. “Pausing this merger now will keep irreversible harm from happening.”
Last week, Attorney General Rayfield and a coalition of 11 other attorneys general filed a lawsuit challenging the unlawful merger, which is expected to result in higher prices, lower content quality, and fewer movies and TV shows.
Background
Currently, Paramount and Warner Bros. compete to create and distribute film and television content to American viewers. To promote their films, they negotiate with thousands of movie theaters across the country and bargain with those theaters to secure the most coveted screens and calendar slots. Movie theaters in Oregon and across the country benefit from competition between Paramount and Warner Bros. to incentivize creativity and secure competitive prices and terms for themselves and for audiences.
Paramount and Warner Bros. also compete to market their basic cable channels. To acquire the rights to distribute that content to subscribers, distributors negotiate with Paramount, Warner Bros., and other cable channel owners. This competition is critical for distributors and for viewers. For example, if Paramount insists on bad financial terms, a distributor can gain leverage by turning to Warner Bros. — and vice versa. Distributors rely on this competition to secure low prices for themselves and for their subscribers, and to encourage programmers to invest in new and exciting content for television.
Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. would end this competition, threatening Oregonians with higher prices, the decline of theatrical exhibition of films, and a reduction in the variety, quality, and amount of content distributed.
