The Government has threatened to intervene in the £83 billion takeover of Warner Bros Discovery by Paramount due to public interest concerns.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told Parliament on Tuesday she is “minded to intervene” in the deal, which will create one of the world’s largest media and entertainment companies.
Paramount agreed to buy Warner Bros Discovery in February after triumphing over Netflix in a lengthy bidding battle.
Unlike Netflix, Paramount had bid to buy all of Warner Bros’s operations, including networks such as CNN and Discovery, as well as HBO Max, DC Studios and popular titles such as Harry Potter.
It will see them added to Paramount’s CBS and combine two of Hollywood’s last five remaining studios.
The Paramount buyout of Warner’s business will significantly reshape Hollywood and the wider media landscape.
Warner Bros films such as Superman, Barbie and One Battle After Another, as well as hit TV series such as The White Lotus and Succession, would join Paramount’s extensive library including the Mission: Impossible and Star Trek franchises.
In the UK, the merged group would control assets including Channel 5 and TNT Sports.
Ms Nandy said she has written to the current and proposed owners of Warner bros Discovery to tell them she is “minded” to intervene on public interest grounds.
She said concerns relate to whether there is “sufficient plurality of views in news media”, the plurality of ownership across the media, and how the deal could impact services in the UK.
The minister is therefore likely to require communications regulator Ofcom and competition watchdog the Competition and Markets Authority to scrutinise the deal further.
