How D.C. Regulators Made 2024 the Year That Big Hollywood Deals Didn’t Happen

variety.com:

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Media and entertainment giants have been in a near constant cycle of mergers and acquisitions since the turn of the century.

However, 2024, will be remembered for the deals that didn’t happen. In July, Paramount Global reached a historic agreement for an $8 billion sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media after almost a year of fitful negotiations.

There’s little doubt that more studio-network conglomerates — think Warner Bros. Discovery and NBCUniversal — would have been involved in serious M&A negotiations (possibly even for Paramount) if the regulatory environment had been more hospitable.

But by the fourth year of the Biden administration, key antitrust regulators at the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission had sent a clear message to the business community: Curb your urge to merge. “This is a regime that was ideologically motivated to say big business is inherently suspect and that large companies present risks economically, politically and socially,” says Mark Whitener, a senior policy fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Business & Public Policy.