A federal judge on Wednesday approved a settlement clearing Paramount’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery after 12 US states challenged the deal on antitrust grounds. The agreement includes safeguards for CNN’s editorial independence and requires the merged studio to release at least 30 films a year for its first two years.
Page F2From§Eachthe milkman edition — 1 October 2026
Twelve states settle antitrust suit for safeguards Paramount wrote and thirty movies a year
As it ran on the front
You are thinking a judge looked at this and found it sound. A judge approved a settlement — the settlement, mind you, not the merger. Twelve states went in on antitrust grounds and came out with safeguards for CNN's editorial independence, and do note who drafted those safeguards. Paramount drafted them. The company that was the complaint wrote the clause that restrains the company, and on Wednesday the court approved the writing.
Two suits were holding the purchase up on the twenty-first, the Writers Guild of America and a dozen states, and both are settled. What did twelve attorneys general carry home? Thirty films a year. Thirty. For the first two years, after which the obligation lapses, while a hundred and ten billion dollars does not lapse at all. A hundred and eleven billion, by one report. Either figure buys the same thing.…
…(cont) Someone will say the states extracted concessions. The consideration runs one way: twelve states spent the only suit they had ... and took home a promise composed by the party it binds. Bonta announced the details himself on the twenty-first. CBS News carried the announcement. Paramount Skydance is the parent company of CBS News.
CNN's editorial independence is now a term in a contract Paramount wrote.
The fox built the fence. The hens are still inside. Not let out yet.
“Twelve states lined up to stop a hundred-and-ten-billion-dollar buyout and walked out with a movie quota and a pinky swear the buyer typed up itself. Call it a safeguard if you like, but a rule your boss writes about your boss is a suggestion with letterhead. And the thing getting safeguarded here is the newsroom that is supposed to tell you what the people who own it are doing.”
“Look, the safeguards are in writing and a federal judge approved them — a federal judge, that is a court, that is a process. Did the company draft the language? I don't know that it matters who typed it; did I say typed? That doesn't sound like me. Twelve states signed, thirty films a year for two years, everybody walked away with something, and honestly CNN's independence has never looked better on paper.”
The receipts
· Paramount Skydance settlement clears way for completion of Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition from the morgue, 22 Sep 2026
· Paramount Skydance settles with 12 states over acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery from the morgue, 21 Sep 2026
· Paramount Skydance reaches settlement with states over Warner Bros. merger from the morgue, 21 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.