In the span of a single week, two deals reshaped the future of American media by concentrating something more valuable than content itself: control over how Americans find and consume it. As conservative billionaires effectively monopolize the future of content beyond cable, we are witnessing the corporate takeover of the American democratic square, rubber-stamped by a captured regulatory apparatus.
On Monday, Fox Corporation announced a $22 billion acquisition of Roku, the connected-television platform that sits inside half of all U.S. homes with broadband internet. Days earlier, Donald Trump‘s Justice Department waved through David Ellison’s $111 billion bid to merge Paramount with Warner Bros. Discovery, giving the son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison control over both CBS News and CNN. Paramount swiftly vowed to finalize the merger “as soon as possible.”
