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Paramount-WBD Merger- Biggest Media Company in the World Will Be EVEN MORE Zionist Than Before · IndieNewsNow LIVE! Clips

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Who are these people?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: This is a partial.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: A partial list.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: This is the list of the things that got added to With the acquisition
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: of Warner Brothers and Discovery to the Paramount family,
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: which is just what happened over the weekend and has been going on for
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: the better part of a year, you know, since there was bidding on it.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: Then we thought it was dead.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Then all of a sudden it came back.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I believe the final price...
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: For the sale was $110 a share that the Ellisons ended up bidding and coughing up
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: with their group of investors.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: And now they're $82 billion in debt because of this.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: And now they got to cut billions of dollars from the entertainment division
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: because they took this massive swing.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: So we're going to get into all of this.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I made this slide and kind of this handy little thumbnail.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: This guy, by the way, this guy is, we're going to talk about him.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: He is the new co-CEO with this guy.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: This guy is David Ellison.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: And this guy, we're going to get to him in a minute.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, we all know Boo Barry Weiss.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: There was a lot of talk that maybe she was going to be fired or let go
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: because CBS News ratings have been in the tank.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to talk about that too.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, all right, let's get into it.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to start,
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: and you know how I love the perspective of the actual workers,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: the people that are doing the work on the ground,
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: in the studios, you know, on the lots.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Paramount Warner merger.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: Democrats and union bureaucrats clear the way for a corporate takeover.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this was written just the other day on October 4th.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: OK, this is the 6th today.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: So we're talking Sunday.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: Mark Wells analyzed this entire.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Deal breakdown from the workers perspective.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: And this is kind of long.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: And this is from World Socialist website,
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: which is the,
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: the Trotskyites and and hardcore pro-worker and hardcore anti- Union even,
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: they believe in rank and file committees
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: because they feel like unions don't necessarily properly represent the workers,
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: especially if there are unions that represent multiple organizations
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: because they don't want to affect their next negotiation or one down the road.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: They may not fight as hard on this one, which affects your workplace.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: And that's not cool to me.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: So what's going on here?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: So again,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: Paramount Warner merger,
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: Democrats and union bureaucrats clear the way for a corporate takeover.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: So this is getting mad at Democrats.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: But of course, this is all run by corporate Republicans.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to get to all that, too.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: I got a bunch of articles here.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: So on Wednesday, U.S.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin approved a five-year settlement that removes
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: the principal legal obstacle to Paramount's $111 billion acquisition
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: of Warner Brothers Discovery.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Last week,
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: California AG Rob Bonta and Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison announced
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: a settlement,
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: the result of which unites two of the six remaining major Hollywood studios under
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: the Ellison family fortune with an $82 billion debt attached, as I mentioned.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: According to the conditions of the settlement,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: The new Paramount must release at least 30 theatrical films annually for
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: the first two years and 32 annually for the following three.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: Spend an additional $1.5 billion in five years on U.S. film and TV production.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: Preserve the Paramount lot on Melrose Avenue and Warner Brothers,
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: Burbank Studio, okay,
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: and establish a $47.5 million fund for workers displaced by the merger,
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: which will get eaten up very quickly.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: They must also create a board supposedly charged with protecting
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: the editorial independence of CBS News and CNN.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: This is where it starts to get weird.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: Fanta, that's the California AG,
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: falsely presented this as a series of safeguards that protects workers' jobs
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: in Hollywood, and that the deal puts workers' needs, concerns, and futures first.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: In reality,
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: his complicity serves to concentrate vast cultural and productive resources into
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: a single corporation.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: The 30-film requirement does nothing to prevent Paramount
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: from consolidating departments,
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: eliminating overlapping positions, outsourcing work, and intensifying speed-up.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: Similarly,
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: the additional $1.5 billion in U.S.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: production sets a spending floor but doesn't stop layoffs,
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: speed-ups, and restructuring.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: So then there's the $47.5 million worker fund.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like I said,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: workers' displacement is accepted as an inevitable consequence of the merger,
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: and the fund is grossly insufficient to support thousands of workers
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: who will lose jobs.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: The August analysis commissioned by L.A.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: County estimated that more than 10,000 job years could be at risk with this merger.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: They're talking about experience.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: The preservation of the Melrose and Burbank lots guarantees the protection
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: of buildings as real estate investments, but not jobs.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: Finally,
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: Paramount's directors remain fully in charge of appointing and removing CBS News
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: and CNN editorial board members,
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: raising obvious questions about information control.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: Naturally,
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: Now, again,
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: the AG statement, Bonta,
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: that this settlement is not a vote of support for this merger,
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: does nothing to settle the anger among tens of thousands
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: of entertainment industry workers who understand the implications.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's not good.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: Moreover,
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: Paramount sought an almost $2 billion court-ordered bond from the 12 states and
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: the WGA to cover merger-related costs if their antitrust litigation delays
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: the transaction and ultimately fails,
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: which is a legal form of blackmail and a procedural delay that changes nothing.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: Again, a court-ordered bond.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: For almost $2 billion.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: They got $47 million for all the people that might be laid off by this.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: And they signed on.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: On September 24th,
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: Cory Booker, who,
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: and blocked the merger coalition,
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: filed objections to the merger,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: and Judge Martinez Ogwin declined to immediately approve the settlement,
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: demanding further responses.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: One of the reasons why Cory Booker is opposing this is because Netflix just moved
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: into his state, into New Jersey.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: They took a major property and are driving property values up and doing all kinds
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: of stuff, and he doesn't want to see their competition do well.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that's also part of this.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: Paramount pressed for approval, of course, and announced a proposed $7.5 billion secured loan.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: Saying that it intends to raise roughly $44.4 billion more in secured debt to fund
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: the acquisition.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: So they're just going to borrow to the hilt is what they're saying.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: And what is all that debt going to do to the company?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: What happens if they decide at some point to declare bankruptcy?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's a fair question, especially with $82.5 billion in debt.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: Booker and the other Democratic politicians never posed any real threat to the merger.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: They did expose the danger of CBS News and CNN under Ellison's control,
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: but in no way challenged private ownership and the domination of society by profit.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: In other words,
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: anything and everything for the oligarchs, because that's who funds their campaigns.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: One revealing episode was the threat by Paramount to move its headquarters
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: and operations out of California with Texas and Tennessee as possible destinations.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think this could possibly still happen.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: Immediately,
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Governor Gavin Newsom, L.A.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: Mayor Karen Bass, and former AG Xavier Bercera pressed Bonta toward a settlement.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: Newsom pushed for a deal in the name of protecting California's film industry,
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: which he didn't do at all,
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: meaning protecting the profits and presence of a corporate giant
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: whose owners just held the state hostage.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: On top of the fact that the consolidation is going to cut the tax base for
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: the company anyway, based on the two companies.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know why they would allow these two companies to actually merge.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: This is creating a massive content.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: And again,
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: when you start to see the properties that this combined company is going to own,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: wow.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: Newsom falsely postures as a scourge of corporate power,
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: but he's bent over backwards to grant special tax advantages for the conglomerates,
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: producing the grotesque spectacle of Trump and his supposed Democratic opponents,
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: basically orchestrating a large operation of corporate welfare
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: through tax credit programs at both federal and state levels.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: So yes,
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: they are also giving a bunch of credits to these businesses in order to offset
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: the losses, which is crazy.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: They're choosing to do this because they're planning to make a ton of money at some point.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, they wouldn't do this.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I feel there's a whole other reason why they're doing this,
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: and I'm going to get into that later.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: The Telecom Act of 1996.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: Signed by Bill Clinton,
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: dismantled ownership restrictions and helped unleash today's concentration.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely fact.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: So on September 22nd,
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: dozens of Hollywood workers rallied outside Paramount Studios organized by the Block
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: the Merger Coalition,
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: carrying fake gravestones marked as RIP local business,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: RIP crew call, and RIP creativity.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: There is no doubt deep opposition among workers who understand that
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: the agreement cannot protect employment or offset the consequences
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: of combining two major studios.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: This is happening while all
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: the major entertainment companies are undergoing surgical layoffs
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: and AI hasn't even been systematically unleashed yet.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Paramount has told Wall Street that it intends to extract more than $6 billion
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: in savings from the combined company.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: Remember that they paid $7.7 billion over seven years to the UFC.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: That means eliminating jobs, consolidating operations.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: They've already decided and they've already brought in a hatchet man to do that.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: The workers understand that production commitments are no guarantee.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: Separate studio operations can remain intact on paper
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: while common ownership coordinates investment,
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: distribution, real estate, and layoffs behind closed doors.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: The notion that giant film studios and conglomerates will be bound
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: by various guarantees on paper is farcical.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: They never hold to that.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: This is an industry notorious for fraudulent bookkeeping,
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: out-and-out swindling,
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: and every imaginative means illegal and legal of cheating its artists.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: L.A. County's own analysis estimates that approximately over 10,000,
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: again, job years in film and television could be lost.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know about lost, but, you know...
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: Let go from their current role alongside more than a billion dollars in wages.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's what this is all about.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: They want to eliminate a billion dollars a year in wages,
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: which is why I brought this whole thing.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: The human cost is already visible.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: The county report estimates that over 52,000 people from California,
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: those jobs have disappeared since 2022, nearly all of them in L.A. County.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: Similar numbers confirmed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: Again, California's expensive.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, they also had a wildfire.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like, there's a lot of reasons, you know, beyond all of that, why they've lost all that.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Georgia and other states have been appealing like crazy to the film industry
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: to film their on location.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I understand.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: Plus, they're not doing nearly the amount of studio stuff.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: They're taking a lot of reality.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: They're making a lot more deals with content creators that already have their own channels.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: But again,
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: motion picture and sound recording equipment employment in LA County peaked at
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: a monthly $161,000 in February of 2022.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, fresh when COVID money was blanketing the whole state and averaged $149,800 that year.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Through July 2026, the monthly average is now 99,400 or a drop of 50,000 jobs.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's a 33% job, a third in four years.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yes,
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: because everything changed and people realized you don't need a massive studio
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: with this massive budget.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: And a huge crew in order to produce quality films, shows, whatever at this point.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: The technology is there, you know, and the locations are there.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to do it in a studio in California.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, everybody figured out they can go remote.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: Abby.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: Actors can't even get work because they had to sign a union deal
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: that said their likeness could be used in perpetuity.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Now all she sees are AI commercials.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: I totally agree.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: And we covered that WGA,
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: that writers and actors strike back in 2022-23 on both How Do We Miss That?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: And on Nobody Wants to Work Anymore regularly.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, even on INN News, the guys covered it.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: But...
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Again, according to the Editors Guild,
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: hundreds of union editors have not worked a single union day in three years.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's AI.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: The merger threatens to deepen a contraction already driven by declining production,
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: outsourcing, and corporate consolidation.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: All this in the context of an unprecedented economic and political crisis in the United States.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: Oops.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's not so great.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: The workers' opposition stands in sharp contrast to the union bureaucracy.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: On September 21st,
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien issued a statement supporting
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: the settlement and thanking Bonta for his hard work to bring together the unions,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: employers, and other interested parties to craft a deal that protects American jobs.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: In other words,
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: he endorsed the agreement that cleared the path for a merger threatening thousands
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: of jobs.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: And the reason for it is he doesn't want to see a massive strike.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't want to see a massive fight where everybody ends up losing their jobs anyway.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: But then their strike fund starts getting hit.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't want to see that touched ever.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: Nor was the Teamsters' leadership alone.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: You had the Directors Guild of America and IATSE already intervened in
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: the antitrust case, urging the AG to negotiate.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: They're asking workers to trust billionaire David Ellison,
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: the architect of a debt-laden corporate empire.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing more exposes the degeneration of Hollywood's union machinery into
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: an instrument for policing workers on behalf of the studios.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: The WGA and SAG-AFTRA leaderships are no less compromised.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: This was a hard thing for me to read because I would like them to be good.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: They actually are supposed to represent the writers and the actors, right?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: But no, they direct workers toward regulators and the Democratic Party,
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: the very forces that paved the way to this merger.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever the tactical difference is,
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: the bureaucracies stopped workers from organizing independently against the merger.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's Justine Bateman.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: She runs the union now.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: It used to be Fran Drescher.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: None challenges the domination of the industry by finance capital.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's where all the jobs get paid for.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: The merger and the corporate stranglehold more generally can be fought only
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: by workers themselves.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how through independent rank and file committees against the studios,
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: the state, the Democratic Party and the union bureaucracy, all of them.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's a lot of fighting while you're fighting to keep your job.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: This is not a local Hollywood struggle.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: The combined company will be a global distribution machine and will dictate terms
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: to independent filmmakers and dissenting artists throughout the globe
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: or just not hire them.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: Dictate terms, meaning you will say this, you will not say that.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: You will be loyal to the state of Israel, of course.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: And we're going to get to that in a minute.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's not in this article.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: World Socialist website is not taking that position.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: That is my personal injection there.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: But...
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: The genuine defense of creative workers,
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: artistic freedom,
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: and truthful reporting requires taking the studios and networks out of private hands
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: and placing them under public ownership and democratic control,
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: a task that can be accomplished only through the independent political mobilization
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: of the working class in the United States and internationally
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: against capitalism itself.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: Kumbaya, my friend.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: Come on.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's a bit, again, I was with you for a bit.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: I had some criticism,
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: but that is like, okay,
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: so you're going to nationalize the television studios and
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: then have government run studios.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: But all right.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, otherwise,
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: it did have a lot of good information in there about what's happening in
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: the industry.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was missing some things.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was missing some perspective.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: But I do think it was important to bring that.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm not done because I have more.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: So the guy that they hired to be the co-CEO alongside David Ellison is a guy by
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: the name of Yanon Kreis.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: He ran Mattel, all right?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: And go figure,
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: he's an Israeli-born businessman who served in the IDF for years before going
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: to Tel Aviv University.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: Of course he is because he's an Israeli-born, so he had to serve in the IDF.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: He and his wife also wore...
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: Hostage dog tags on the red carpet at the 2024 Academy Awards,
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: so he shares the Ellison's pro-Israel stance.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: Naturally, you've got him appointing a raging Israel-friendly Zionist at the top alongside him.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: And now what's interesting is that the way that he ran Mattel,
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: and I did not bring this article,
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: but I wanted to shout out Simon Owens over on Substack.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: He does business and entertainment news and analysis.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: He talked about how basically Barbie...
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: Made this guy's career,
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: and he really mismanaged and did not do very well with Mattel after the relaunch of
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: the Barbie movie and all of that stuff, that it really has not done very well.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: So it's interesting that they tapped him,
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: of all people, to run the largest entertainment company in the history of the world.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, more...
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: Let's learn about this guy a little bit about his package, his pay package, his compensation.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: He's going to receive a pay of more than $46.5 million, annual base salary of $5 million.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: Annually, Jesus.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: He used to make $15.1 million.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: He had a total comp package in 2025.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: So he's getting triple the money.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: To go, you know, propagandize the world.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: That came from Variety Magazine.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: So then everybody was concerned about Barry Weiss and Barry Weiss not.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: Was she still going to run CBS News?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, their ratings have been in the tank.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: Her 60 Minutes has been a mess.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, this guy they hired to run the, to anchor the evening news has not worked out well.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: And she's been just bringing in massive neocon Zionist stuff like crazy.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: But I felt that was her role the entire time.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't care about the ratings.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: They care, but they don't really care.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like what they care about is the narrative and the injection of the propaganda into AI.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: And the fact that they have now all of these authoritative sources.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: So these are the main brands that they now run.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: So you've got Warner and DC, Paramount, Nickelodeon, CBS, CNN, HBO Max.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so now you've got Paramount Plus and HBO Max,
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: and they're talking about how are they going to run that?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: They're going to combine them, likely.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: All right, but...
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: That now you have this huge leadership team.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: You're going to have one chief marketing officer over all of these other brands.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: And again, remember, let's go back here.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: This is just the brands that they were acquiring with CNN and the Learning Channel
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: and Cartoon Network and HGTV and the Food.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: You're going to have one marketing department effectively that's going to run all of that?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: And again,
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: this is,
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: remember the connections that we've covered in the past of Larry Ellison
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: and David Ellison, funded by Oracle, which was founded by the CIA.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: And for 30 years, the CIA was their only client.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: Then they opened it up commercially.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: Now Oracle's a massive company publicly traded.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then they went into data centers,
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: which all of a sudden now they're canceling data centers for some reason.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think they're not getting the orders.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: But what's happening again is that you've got,
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: they're going to keep the chairman and editor of CNN Worldwide,
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: Mark Thompson, and Barry Weiss in their roles for now.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: That could change next week.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: That could change next month.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: There is nothing that's showing that this is all going to be in stone
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: or how long it's going to last.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: Because then there's going to be consolidation.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: There's going to be elimination of duplicate roles.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: There's going to be a lot happening here.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it's going to cost a lot of jobs and a lot of money.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really not necessary at all from what I'm seeing.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: Now, capitalism.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: You can't really stop them, but you can because this really is an antitrust thing.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: But it is and it isn't because DC has Marvel.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: Basically, you've got Disney, but then you've got Amazon as a studio and Apple as a studio.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: Who are the other big studios?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: You think that they're not going to use this weight to try to bully and acquire
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: the other ones and put them out too?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: This is what capitalism does.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: All right?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: It sucks.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: And it sucks that it's all being put in the hands of CIA-friendly, ultra-Zionist propagandists.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: Skydance doesn't sound dystopic at all.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: Totally agree.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: And Paramount will be Pompeii.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I don't know.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, again, is...
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: Is this whole thing like a private equity leveraged buyout thing to suck
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: the entire entertainment industry dry of all potential profits and leave it
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: with nothing in its wake while they run away with the profits and take fees?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's possible.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's possible.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, yes, Angel's got a ticket to pro wrestling talk.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: This is what Vince McMahon did when he bought out WCW and ECW in the early 2000s.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: And for a while, it was hard, especially on the wrestlers.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, and this will end up being a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, all right?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: And the debt will disappear without hitting anyone negatively.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they will definitely hit people negatively because they're going
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: to end up cutting a ton of jobs.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: They're going to end up cutting a ton of projects that result in a ton
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: of jobs getting cut as well.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: The ones who...
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Or get affected of the workers who will lose their jobs.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: And again, that will end up in losses for studios.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm guessing that they probably will not end up staying in California long term.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm guessing that they are already setting up.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think that Skydance already has an office downtown
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: because Paramount's headquarters,
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think, has a headquarters at Hudson Yards in New York City that they just built.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: So...
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: How the government is going to try to step in and potentially stop any of this?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, look,
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: you have an FTC,
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: a Federal Trade Commission,
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: that could step in and do something, but I don't think that they really want to.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think that all these people are basically going to be promised jobs on the other side of this.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that's going, jobs, careers, whatever it is, or some kind of check, who knows?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: That seems to be the obvious thing to me.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: So that's just a high-level version of what's been happening.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then today,
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: the company actually went public on,
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's the NASDAQ,
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: as Skydance,
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: Warner Brothers Discovery stopped trading as WBD,
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: and Skydance
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: started trading as SkyD, I believe, was the
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: symbol for it.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it opened at like 12, and I saw it was down to nine at one point already.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I believe that they're using a portion of this to try to finance and offset
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: the debt, the money that's raised.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: And they'll sell some stock off of that.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what's really interesting, and I didn't... Where's the one that I had?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: It must be in here somewhere.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_02: The Ellisons, here we go, did not...
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: Did not sell any shares of Class A stock.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: They are only selling Class B stock, which I believe holds no voting rights to the company.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's literally like a silent investor.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: Pretty sure that's what was going on.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's not this article.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: I've read so many articles this week about it.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't want to make this segment too, too long.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: But thank you for bearing with me on this.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: I know this isn't what we normally talk about necessarily,
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: but do you think that there's going to...
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: Actually,
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: how do you not think that they're going to be smattering all of the content
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: across all these platforms now with pro-Israel propaganda?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think that...
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: Palestinian creators are going to go through to get their work published
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: that publishes the truth about what actually happened on October 7th.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's going to be a problem.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, again, it's going to be a narrative management and a propaganda level.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: This is why they're doing this.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: They want to have say over the entire narrative.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: They want to be able to literally cancel actors and stop them from working on any
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: of these properties.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: And by extension,
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: then they'll partner with this one or that one and stop them from working
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: in other places.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, again, all part of the club.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: And as you said, Sean, yes, all made legal by Zionists.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, Abby, we have to.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: We have to question everything now.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: Everything.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's our only really non-totally Fuck Israel segment till the lightning round.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: But all right.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: Support independent media because we need it more than ever.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: Again, from the workers' perspective,
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: I don't see too many people breaking down this Skydance deal.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I appreciate the people that support this channel and appreciate the work that we do.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the people that have already done so.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate all of you.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: The best ways to do so,
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: Cash App,
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: Dollar Sign,
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: Indie News Network,
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: ko-fi.com,
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: ko-fi.com, slash Indie News Network, IndieNewsNow.com, that's our website.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: But it's also a 24-7 news aggregator where you can get a lot of the stuff
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: that I'm going to show tonight,
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: especially the Israel-related stuff,
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: was linked and I found by going through the history of IndieNewsNow.com.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, over on Substack.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Coming to a Substack newsletter near you.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: We have two.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: Indiemediatoday.com.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm live over there right now.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: Hi to everybody watching on Substack.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then also over at INN Newsletter.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's for the network that I'm a member of.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I publish a weekly update there, a couple other podcasts there.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: I basically admin that Substack as well.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: All right, so we're going to get to our next segment.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: All right, all three of the Ed Sheeran fans will be upset with Robert Kraft.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: That stupid-ass stadium will sell out every Pintan Patriots.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: It'll probably sell out the Zach Bryan thing that happened this weekend.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't want to talk about it.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: Steve did a good kind of breakdown of what happened there over on AM Wake Up.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was Monday or Tuesday.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: It was Monday morning.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, so he sold out like a record number of tickets.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: Apparently my nephew and sister-in-law went the next night to go see him.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: So Robert Kraft,
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: even though he may not be happy with the t-shirt,
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: he You know,
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: that Zach wore, he ended up making a ton, a ton
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: of money on the night
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: anyway.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: And the funny thing about what Zach Bryan did was that he did not announce what he was doing.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: He wore a t-shirt, which didn't violate any of his agreements.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't break any rules.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: And he didn't give them a chance to say no.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: They could get mad.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: They could blackball him going forward and say that he's never going to be allowed
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: to do this going forward.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: But...
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: He at least got his shot in there, too.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: And we'll see what happens if they tolerate it.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: He feels like he's kind of too big to cancel because he's one of
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: the biggest country music stars in the world.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, everyone, for supporting Independent Media.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, we need it more than ever.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: I will see you next Tuesday.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's what she said.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: Love you all.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: Night, everybody.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: No!
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: We just fucking lost the stream!
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: I guess this isn't such an awful place.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what you want me to say?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: You prove it's possible to sleep for days.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I still think you're right here awake.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: The cost of living isn't much to make.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: But God, it's so hard to say.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: And when they told you everything was
• 35:04
  [music]