Mediaite One Sheet: David Ellison and Paramount Get WBD, CNN Loses, Trump Wins?

The Big Picture

Netflix walked away from the Warner Bros. Discovery bidding war Thursday, handing David Ellison‘s Paramount a sprawling empire that includes CNN, HBO, Warner Bros. Pictures, and CBS News — and setting off a firestorm in the media criticism world about what it means for editorial independence, press freedom, and the future of news under a Trump-aligned owner. Inside CNN, staffers are reportedly panicking. Outside it, the chattering class is split between alarm, dark humor, and long-game skepticism. The press freedom story of the week is quieter but no less significant: the Trump administration is pushing to break the editorial firewall at U.S.-funded international broadcasters. And the Washington Post keeps bleeding — more than $100 million lost last year — while The Athletic is busy hoovering up its talent.

Today’s sources: Status | Semafor | CNN | The Ankler | Awful Announcing | Axios | Reliable Sources | Breaker | The Free Press | Poynter | The Rebooting | Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter | Newsbusters | Barrett Media | Nieman Lab | Politico Playbook | Tubefilter

Top Story

PARAMOUNT WINS, CNN LOSES — THE CHATTERING CLASS PROCESSES ITS WORST NIGHTMARE

For months, the media industry had been watching two of the most aggressive dealmakers in Hollywood circle Warner Bros. Discovery like prize fighters. On Thursday afternoon, one of them blinked.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos spent the morning at the White House. By evening, his company had issued a statement declining to match Paramount’s $31-per-share bid for WBD — walking away from what would have been the most transformative media deal in years and handing David Ellison a portfolio that includes CNN, HBO, Warner Bros. Pictures, CBS News, and a cable library stretching from Seinfeld to Batman.

Axios reporters Christine Wang and Sara Fischer framed it cleanly, noting that Netflix had always called the deal “a nice to have at the right price, not a must have at any price” — and with Paramount sweetening its offer to $31 per share, up 63% from its original September bid, the math no longer worked. Netflix shares surged 13% in after-hours trading. WBD CEO David Zaslav called it “tremendous value for our shareholders” and said he “can’t wait to get started” with Paramount.

But the financial read only tells part of the story. The chattering class is processing this primarily as a political event. Semafor’s Rohan Goswami framed Netflix’s exit as a “bruising lesson about dealmaking in President Donald Trump’s Washington.” The turning point, in Goswami’s telling, came when Netflix board member Susan Rice publicly criticized companies that “take the knee” to Trump. The president responded by demanding Netflix fire her. Republicans in Congress intensified their antitrust drumbeat. The regulatory math Sarandos had quietly been confident about fell apart.

CNN’s Brian Stelter connected the dots bluntly: Trump had said as recently as December that it was “imperative that CNN be sold,” and a Netflix deal would have spun CNN off into an independent entity — precisely the outcome Trump didn’t want. Trump advisers, Stelter reported, were “taking a victory lap” by Thursday evening. Poynter’s Tom Jones flagged a piece by Media Matters’ Matt Gertz, who compared the outcome to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s methodical dismantling of independent media, calling it “a familiar tactic of authoritarian leaders” and “a political deal in which the president steered the ownership of a major news outlet to his crony.”

The Ankler’s Richard Rushfield offered the most counterintuitive read: Maybe Netflix played this exactly right. Walking away with a $2.8 billion breakup fee, a clean narrative as the industry’s good-guy alternative, and a debt-laden competitor stumbling toward a merger is not a bad outcome. Simon Owens was more blunt about Ellison, calling him a “rich failson” who is “simply mashing together two unsuccessful media conglomerates” and who “paid $150 million for a right-wing blog just so he could install someone with no broadcast or journalism experience as the head of CBS News.”

Press freedom nonprofit Free Press called the outcome a deal that “endangers our democracy by giving a family of pliant billionaires even more control of vast swaths of our news coverage, TV stations and movie studios.” The deal still faces regulatory review — California AG Rob Bonta said his office would probe the transaction — and months of uncertainty remain. But for the journalists whose futures now hinge on Ellison’s intentions, the uncertainty is its own kind of verdict.

TAKEAWAY: The chattering class is nearly unanimous: this is a Trump story, not a streaming story. When media critics are more focused on the Saudi financing and Bari Weiss than on the streaming rationale, that tells you everything about how this deal is being read — and what the press expects to happen next.

Three Takes

SO WHO RUNS CNN NOW?

With Paramount poised to take over Warner Bros. Discovery, the question dominating media criticism Thursday wasn’t about corporate intrigue. It was simpler and darker: what happens to CNN?

Status (Oliver Darcy): Darcy reported that CNN staffers are openly panicking — one told him “we are doomed,” another “we are f*cked” — and that CNN chief Mark Thompson quickly sent a memo urging calm and promising a town hall. Darcy was unsparing in his own analysis: Ellison “has telegraphed his intentions,” the Wall Street Journal had reported that Ellison offered Trump officials “assurances” he’d make sweeping changes to CNN, and roughly $24 billion of the deal’s financing is coming from Saudi Arabia — a regime that “orchestrated the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.” Worth noting: Darcy’s sourcing is anonymous and unspecified — we don’t know whether the staffers he’s quoting are senior correspondents or production assistants — and his own complicated departure from CNN gives him a particular lens on the network’s internal culture. His reporting likely captures something real. Whether it captures the full picture is another question.

Semafor (Rohan Goswami): Goswami’s framing centers on what Netflix’s defeat reveals about the limits of power in Trump’s Washington — and what it means structurally for CNN. A Netflix deal would have spun the network into an independent entity. Under Paramount, CNN stays inside a conglomerate whose CEO has made his intentions plain. Goswami also noted that Netflix now faces “an infuriated president who will likely continue to pay attention to the cultural programming Netflix puts out” — a reminder that walking away from this deal doesn’t mean walking away from Trump’s attention.

The Free Press (Nellie Bowles): Nellie Bowles — TGIF columnist at The Free Press and, notably, Bari Weiss‘s wife — opened her Friday newsletter with a dry aside that may be the sharpest two sentences written about the deal all day: “I’m getting late-breaking news that I run CBS News and CNN now. I’m processing it all. Thanks for checking in. Life takes all kinds of twists and turns, and sometimes bad things (becoming a mogul) happen to good people (me).” The joke lands differently knowing who she’s married to — and what her spouse’s role in all this actually is.

TAKEAWAY: Three newsletters, three frames — panic reporting, structural analysis, and a joke from inside the house — but the same underlying conclusion: CNN’s editorial future is now a political variable, not a journalistic one. The newsletters spent Thursday wondering what Ellison will do to CNN. The better question may be what CNN will do to Ellison.

📰 Top Reads 📰

Breaker, Lachlan Cartwright
🚨 SCOOP: RUPERT AND LACHLAN’S FIGHT TO KEEP THE NEVADA FILES SECRET: Lawyers for Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch have filed motions in Nevada court to keep major portions of the family trust case sealed — including Rupert’s marital settlement with his second wife, attorney-client communications, and the trust instruments themselves. A Nevada nonprofit news organization, Our Nevada Judges, is opposing the effort. Netflix drops Dynasty: The Murdochs on March 13 — two days after Rupert’s 95th birthday. QUOTE (Our Nevada Judges court filing): “The free press is the guardian of the public interest, and the independent judiciary is the guardian of the free press.” … QUICK TAKE: The effort to seal the files is itself the story. Whatever the Murdochs are trying to keep out of the public record, the legal maneuvering timed around the drop of a Netflix docuseries is no coincidence.

Status, Oliver Darcy
SHAKEUP AT CNBC: CNBC announced roughly a dozen layoffs as it moves to fuse TV and digital operations following its Comcast spin-off. Managing editor Jeff McCracken is among those exiting. Editor-in-Chief David Cho is pushing the network toward a digital paywall and unified editorial structure. The network says it will hire more than 40 new roles over the next year. QUOTE (Steve Kovach, technology correspondent): “Today was my last day at CNBC.” … QUICK TAKE: Every restructuring comes packaged with a promise of new hires. CNBC’s paywall bet is a genuine strategic pivot — the question is whether the audience that came for free financial TV will pay to keep it.

Awful Announcing, Drew Lerner
CBS SPORTS AND TNT SPORTS ARE DESTINED TO MERGE: With Paramount poised to take over WBD, Awful Announcing makes the case that TNT Sports’ destiny is now a combination with CBS Sports — creating a live sports portfolio that would be rivaled only by ESPN, including the NFL, March Madness, MLB and NHL playoffs, the Masters, UFC, NASCAR, and the French Open. The piece notes that some TNT properties could move to broadcast CBS, and that Paramount+ stands to benefit significantly from the addition of TNT Sports rights. QUOTE (Lerner): “It’s fair to say that this live sports portfolio would be rivaled only by ESPN.” … QUICK TAKE: The chattering class spent Thursday on CNN’s editorial future. The sports media consequences of the WBD deal — which could reshape the entire live rights landscape — barely got a mention. Awful Announcing is doing the work everyone else skipped.

Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter
MS NOW PRESIDENT OPENS UP: Los Angeles Times reporter Stephen Battaglio sat down with MS NOW president Rebecca Kutler for her first in-depth interview since taking the role. Kutler said the controversial rebrand hasn’t slowed audience growth — viewership is up double digits — and announced a direct-to-consumer subscription product launching by early fall, which she’s describing as a “membership” aimed at “people who love news, care about democracy and want to come together in a shared space.” QUOTE (Kutler): “We’re trying to build a product that meets the needs of people who love news, care about democracy and want to come together in a shared space.” … QUICK TAKE: “Membership” is doing a lot of ideological work as a reframe of “subscription.” Kutler is pitching MS NOW’s DTC product as a civic community — which is either savvy positioning or a tell about how narrow her target audience actually is.

Axios, Kerry Flynn
THE ATHLETIC POACHES SIX FROM THE SINKING WASHINGTON POST: The Athletic announced it has hired six former Washington Post sports journalists — including Barry Svrluga, Candace Buckner, and Adam Kilgore — after the Bezos-owned paper shuttered its sports desk. Athletic executive editor Steven Ginsberg framed the hires as a direct play to fill the void the Post left in Washington sports coverage. QUOTE (Ginsberg): “For many decades, The Washington Post was the go-to place for sports for Washingtonians. That’s not an option now.” … QUICK TAKE: The Post sports desk dissolution keeps generating clean narratives for competitors. The Athletic is turning someone else’s retreat into a recruitment pitch — and the talent haul is real.

Awful Announcing, Ellyn Briggs
ENGAGEMENT FARMS ARE PUTTING FABRICATED QUOTES IN JEMELE HILL’S MOUTH: A reported piece on the growing prevalence of fake quotes attributed to sports media personalities — with Jemele Hill and Ryan Clark as primary subjects — documents how Facebook engagement farms manufacture outrage by inventing inflammatory statements and attributing them to recognizable names. Hill describes finding a fabricated quote claiming she called Angel Reese “the next Michael Jordan” — and discovering that even after correcting the record, followers responded: “Maybe you didn’t say it, but it sounds like something you would say.” … QUICK TAKE: The engagement farm problem isn’t new, but this piece puts a human face on the accountability gap. Platforms have every incentive to let fabricated outrage run — it drives clicks. The people whose names get attached to the lies have no recourse that scales.

Poynter, Tom Jones
GANNETT TURNS ITS FIRST PROFIT SINCE 2019: USA Today Company — formerly Gannett — reported a profit of $1.7 million for fiscal year 2025, its first year-end profit since its $1.2 billion merger with Gatehouse in 2019. CEO Mike Reed attributed the turnaround to digital subscription growth, AI licensing deals with Meta and Microsoft, and a rebuilt subscription strategy focused on reducing churn. Digital revenue now accounts for 47% of total revenue, with a target of 50% by year’s end. QUOTE (Reed): “We believe the actions we took in early 2025 are creating a more sustainable, predictable and growth-oriented subscriber base.” … QUICK TAKE: $1.7 million on $2.3 billion in revenue is a razor-thin margin and a long way from health — but after years of losses, mass layoffs, and a mass exodus of editors, Gannett turning any profit is a data point worth watching.

Semafor, Rohan Goswami
BBC NEWS CEO REJECTS “INSTITUTIONAL BIAS” CHARGE: Former BBC News CEO Deborah Turness, in her first interview since resigning, told Semafor’s Restoring Trust in Media summit that the controversial edit of a pre-January 6 Trump speech “wasn’t up to editorial standards” but did not reflect systemic problems at the broadcaster. QUOTE (Turness): “The edit wasn’t up to editorial standards, but I don’t accept the charge that it was a sign of institutional bias.” … QUICK TAKE: The distinction Turness is drawing — bad edit, not bad institution — is exactly the line the BBC needs her to hold. Whether anyone outside the building finds it convincing is a separate matter.

Status, Oliver Darcy
BILL O’REILLY TO ANCHOR CHRIS CUOMO’S NEWSNATION SHOW: Bill O’Reilly will guest-host Chris Cuomo‘s NewsNation program next Wednesday, reviving “The O’Reilly Factor” branding for the occasion. QUOTE (O’Reilly): “Wait until you see the cast that we’ve assembled.” … QUICK TAKE: O’Reilly filling in for Cuomo on NewsNation is the cable news ecosystem summarized in a single booking — which is either a sign of second chances or a sign of how thoroughly scrambled the landscape has become. It’s truly a tell of how NewsNation is pivoting hard right to appeal to Trump.

 

🎬 SHOWBIZ 🎬

The Ankler, Sean McNulty
THE COMPANY THAT JUST WON A $111 BILLION DEAL LOST HALF A BILLION IN Q4: Paramount reported a net loss of $573 million in Q4 2025 — its fourth consecutive year without an annual profit. Linear TV revenue is down 15% over two years. Pluto TV revenue has fallen 33% in two years. Streaming subscriber growth slowed to just 2.8 million new subscribers in 2025, compared to 9.7 million the year before. The Ankler’s Sean McNulty summed up the disconnect with characteristic directness — writing before Paramount’s final $111 billion offer was announced. QUOTE (McNulty): “It’s kind of mind-blowing to think that a company with numbers like this is looking to do a deal valued at $108 billion.” … QUICK TAKE: Paramount won the bidding war. Whether it won anything else is a genuinely open question. The numbers behind the victory lap are not the numbers of a company positioned to absorb a $111 billion acquisition cleanly.

Awful Announcing, Drew Lerner
TONY DUNGY LIKELY OUT AT NBC AFTER 17 SEASONS: Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy is likely to be dropped from NBC’s Football Night in America pregame show, Awful Announcing has learned, as the network prepares to take the show fully on the road and slim down its cast. Analyst Rodney Harrison is also unlikely to return, and Jac Collinsworth‘s role is in question. The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand separately reported nothing is final and NBC could still move Dungy into an emeritus role. QUOTE (Andrew Marchand, the Athletic): “The Dungy move is one of the first decisions in what is anticipated to be a new-look show.” … QUICK TAKE: Seventeen seasons is a long run, and Dungy’s departure — if confirmed — would mark a genuine generational shift at one of the highest-rated sports programs on television. NBC’s decision to take the show on the road signals a broader rethink of the pregame format.

Tubefilter, Emily Burton
DROPOUT CRASHES A COP SHOW — AND SOME FANS ARE MAD: Sam Reich‘s Dropout comedy studio and the stars of its Game Changer series will appear in a crossover episode of ABC’s The Rookie on March 2 — the first time a major TV network has integrated a creator-founded digital property at this scale. Dropout recently hit 1 million paid subscribers. Some fans are already protesting, with one commenter screencapping a cancelled subscription and calling it “copaganda.” QUOTE (Dropout subscriber): “Not subscribing to copaganda in the year 2026.” … QUICK TAKE: The backlash says as much about Dropout’s audience as it does about the show. Getting 10 million monthly YouTube views is one thing; a police procedural crossover is apparently where some subscribers draw the line.

 

👀 What Got Missed? 👀

Lost in all the handwringing about CNN’s editorial future was an inconvenient question nobody in the chattering class wanted to ask: what exactly are we defending? CNN has been in something close to a death spiral for five straight years. Its ratings have cratered. Its identity has blurred. And the executive class now bracing for Ellison’s arrival has been largely in place since Jeff Zucker‘s ouster — when CNN was the top-rated cable news network. The same leadership that presided over the Chris Licht debacle, the failed CNN+, and years of audience erosion is now being cast as the bulwark of journalistic independence. Maybe Ellison’s takeover is a threat to press freedom. It probably is. But the chattering class’s reflexive defense of CNN’s current stewardship glosses over the fact that the network’s slow decline happened on somebody’s watch — and it wasn’t Ellison’s.

 

🏆 Newsletter of the Day 🏆

Status with Oliver Darcy — Darcy drove Thursday’s narrative more than any other newsletter — his inside reporting on CNN’s internal panic set the agenda, his CNBC shakeup item was solid, and his accounting of the Saudi financing angle was the sharpest in the field. That said, the One Sheet has to note what the One Sheet exists to note: Darcy’s CNN sourcing is anonymous and unspecified, with no indication of seniority or position. His own departure from CNN — which was not without friction — gives him a particular lens on the network’s culture that readers deserve to weigh. His reporting almost certainly captures something real. Whether it captures the full picture, or the loudest slice of it, is worth keeping in mind. Status gets the award for impact. The sourcing caveat comes with it.

The Bottom Line

The media criticism industry spent Thursday asking what David Ellison will do to CNN. That’s the right question — but it may be obscuring a more uncomfortable one: what did the press do to get here? CNN spent the last several years retreating from the aggressive posture that made it a Trump target — platforming bad-faith pundits, airing his remarks at length, softening its edges. It didn’t work. The lesson the chattering class is drawing is that Trump’s political pressure sealed CNN’s fate. The lesson they’re not drawing is that preemptive capitulation didn’t buy the network any protection. That’s worth sitting with — especially for the newsrooms now watching from a safe distance and telling themselves it couldn’t happen to them.