The deal that could turn Hollywood into Trump’s mouthpiece ...Middle East

WASHINGTON DC – Only last Friday, executives at Netflix believed that the streaming video giant’s latest acquisition would prove to be a sure-fire hit. But unlike Bridgerton, The Diplomat or My Secret Santa, the company’s proposed purchase of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) has exhibited a sudden plot twist that few industry observers appear to have anticipated.

Paramount’s 11th-hour hostile takeover bid for WBD has turned the company’s future into a nail-biting political thriller. It could soon require Donald Trump to make one of the most consequential decisions of his presidency. At stake, not only the future of tens of thousands of Hollywood jobs and the prospects for the Trump family’s personal fortunes, but also the fate of one of the US leader’s many nemeses: CNN, the 24-hour news channel that Trump loves to loathe.

Our story begins in a very binary fashion: Netflix announced last week that it had struck an $83 billion (£62bn) deal, negotiated in secret over the last month, to purchase the streaming and studio arms of WBD. Netflix would not be purchasing WBD’s cable television channels, including CNN and Discovery. They would instead be spun off into a separate public company over which Netflix would hold no sway.

On paper, the deal wowed Wall Street, with the combined assets of the new venture poised to create to world’s biggest, most powerful streaming behemoth.

But then, Paramount pounced. Irritated that Netflix had won a bidding war that also saw Comcast similarly disappointed, Paramount went hostile. On Monday, it offered to buy the entirety of WBD, including CNN and the company’s other cable television assets. Paramount must now take its all-cash offer, worth a whopping $108.4 billion (£81bn), directly to WBD shareholders in a bid to secure their support for the deal.

Enter, stage right, President Trump. Each suitor eyeing WBD has sought his imprimatur for their respective bids, knowing that unlike all past occupants of the Oval Office, he intends personally to determine the future of the company, and not leave it to US anti-monopoly regulators to make their own decision.

Netflix’s co-CEO, Ted Sarandos, met Trump last month and reportedly secured the President’s guarantee that WBD would simply go to the highest bidder. But only last weekend, Paramount’s David Ellison was a guest in Trump’s box for an awards ceremony at the Kennedy Center event space in Washington DC, and buttonholed the President, informing him of the company’s hostile takeover intentions.

Reports suggest that Ellison may have promised to make significant anchor and programming changes at CNN, similar to those Paramount is already orchestrating at CBS News. Any such promise would certainly have secured Trump’s attention, given his hostility towards CNN and its fiercely independent editorial line that enrages the White House.

But hours after his conversation with Ellison, Trump was infuriated by a CBS News interview on 60 Minutes with dissident Maga Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, whom he accuses of being a “traitor”. “My real problem with the show…was that the new ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air”, Trump fulminated. “THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP”, he raged, as he demanded an apology for its transmission.

Twenty-four hours later came yet another plot twist. It was revealed in regulatory filings that Paramount’s bid for WBD had been joined by the President’s own son-in-law Jared Kushner. His private equity firm, Affinity Partners, is already flush with Saudi Arabian financial backing. Now, his involvement means that Trump’s decision about WBD’s future will have direct consequences for the wealth of the President’s own family.

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In the world of crony capitalism that now dominates life in Washington, Trump has already proved enthusiastic about taking decisions that enrich his family’s business enterprises. But this time round, he may simultaneously succeed in ridding himself of CNN’s pervasive critique of his administration, and could redouble his efforts to force Paramount to bring CBS News to heel.

Over at Netflix, the champagne corks may have been popped too early. The company’s statement last Friday vowing to create “an Extraordinary Offering for Consumers…More Opportunities for the Creative Community and…Strengthen the Entertainment Industry” now looks premature. Or, Trump might surprise everyone and punish the Ellison family by denying Paramount the latest gift it hopes to find beneath its corporate Christmas tree.

After all, in the world of Netflix, stranger things have been known to happen.

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