UPDATE: Another piece just landed on the board. Per Bloomberg, Paramount will put the 30-movie pledge into signed contracts with AMC and Regal, turning the promise into something the theater chains can enforce.
UPDATE 2: That scoreboard is now the centerpiece of a Supreme Court filing. Iowa and Montana are asking the Court to shut down the 12-state case, arguing that when 68 regulators clear a deal, the outlier is the 12 states, not the DOJ.
The last foreign holdout just said yes.
The UK on Thursday cleared the $110 billion Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, with both the country’s antitrust watchdog and its culture secretary standing down.
By Paramount’s own count, 66 governments and jurisdictions around the world have now cleared the deal or declined to challenge it.
The map is complete. One courtroom remains.
What The UK Approved
The Competition and Markets Authority found no competition concerns and declined to open a deeper investigation.
And culture secretary Lisa Nandy, who had said she was “minded” to intervene, backed down after Paramount signed legally binding commitments.
That’s a loss for the celebrity campaign against the deal. Names like Benedict Cumberbatch and Alan Cumming had called on the UK to block it. The government said no.
The global clearances back up Ellison’s memo projecting confidence the deal will close, even as the states press their case.
The Price Of The Yes
Paramount signed a “deed of covenant” with the British government, in force for five years once the deal closes.
The promises: UK linear channels stay separate from the streaming services, and the news and children’s networks keep their editorial independence.
Channel 5 stays a public service broadcaster, with its news walled off from CBS News and CNN International, and gets more funding for news, kids’ programming, and drama through the end of 2034.
Ellison, in a letter to the British government, admitted the combined company will cut costs on the back-office side, while promising editorial and content decisions stay untouched.
And Nandy isn’t fully done watching. She meets Paramount again in the coming weeks and says she’s considering new powers to protect British content if needed.
66 Yeses. One Address Left.
Remember the scoreboard. When the lawsuit dropped, we noted Paramount’s victory-lap map had holes in it. Then Europe filled the biggest one.
Now the UK closes the map. The DOJ, the EU, Australia, Brazil, China, South Korea, and dozens more. Sixty-six yeses.
Every remaining question about this merger now gets answered in one place: a federal courtroom in Oakland, where the trial starts March 2, 2027.
One Fight Left, And A Door Marked Settlement
The field keeps narrowing. The consumer lawsuit against the deal has now been dismissed — the plaintiffs can amend and try again, but for now it’s off the board.
And this week, David Ellison said Paramount is “absolutely open” to settling with the states, while insisting it wins at trial.
Zaslav, meanwhile, used Thursday’s earnings call to insist there’s no DC strategy shift coming while everyone waits.
Stack it up: Newsom pushing Bonta to make a deal, the judge telling both sides to pick a settlement referee, and now Ellison saying the door is open.
Sixty-six governments said yes. Twelve states said no. And every DC domino waits on which side blinks first.
