The potential sale of Warner Bros. Discovery has been the talk of the town since its announcement. The developments have been intriguing, with Paramount Skydance sending escalating offers for the company (which included making WBD CEO David Zaslav co-CEO of a merged Paramount-WBD), and Netflix and Amazon reportedly having interest in placing their own bids. The news has been far-reaching, even sparking debates about the future of DC Studios.
Now, a major industry player has spoken out against the ongoing situation. The Writers Guild of America East and West released a statement (via Variety), publicly expressing their disappointment over Warner Bros. Discovery's potential sale. The WGA called the possible merger a "disaster" for those in the industry, and vowed to do work to block it:
“Merger after merger in the media industry has harmed workers, diminished competition and free speech, and wasted hundreds of billions of dollars better invested in organic growth. Combining Warner Bros. with Paramount or another major studio or streamer would be a disaster for writers, for consumers, and for competition. The WGAW [Writers Guild of America West] and WGAE [Writers Guild of America East] will work with regulators to block the merger.”
As noted by Variety, this is not the first time the WGA has opposed media mergers. The guild has, in fact, argued against them since the early 2000s. It opposed the AT&T and Warner Bros. merger in 2016 (before it was ultimately finalized in 2018), the Fox and Disney merger in 2017, MGM and Amazon's in 2021, and, most recently, opposed the 2022 merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery. Stemming from that acquisition, the WGA published "Broken Promises"—a bulletin follow-up to a previous publication (more on that below) advocating against consolidation in the entertainment industry—in which it stated:
"The Warner Bros. Discovery merger sharply illustrates how consolidation increases the power of gatekeepers at the expense of marginalized voices. [...] This ill-advised merger is already a clear disaster for the content creators who have lost jobs and a potential employer, as well as for the consumers who are faced with a poorer, less-diverse content landscape."
Prior to this statement, in December 2021, the WGA published "Broken Promises: Media Mega-Mergers and the Case for Antitrust Reform," advocating for stricter reform laws. The publication partially said:
"Media is the poster child for the failures of antitrust enforcement. The past 12 years have seen unprecedented levels of vertical and horizontal consolidation among television distributors and film and television producers, with large mergers alone totaling over $400 billion in deal value.1 [...] Over and over, [media companies] promised lower prices and more choice for customers. However, once regulators cleared the mergers, consumers saw price hikes at AT&T-DirecTV, less diversity of content at Disney-Fox, and fewer streaming choices at AT&T-Time Warner."
As mentioned in "Broken Promises," a common concern surrounding mega-mergers is shrinkage of the entertainment market. To explain what this means, essentially, the more companies that merge, the less studios that exist. The less studios, the less potential buyers/outlets for content offerings from different creatives. The less content offerings, the more homogenized entertainment can become.
We will keep you updated on any future developments regarding Warner Bros. Discovery's potential sale.