Why, what the hell is the point? Why would the average person care about a merger?

regularization 39 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Because 5 companies control 80% of movie box office in the US and that number is about to shrink to 4? Not only making the profits and doing massive layoffs, but deciding what content we can see?

When purchasing Paramount, David Ellison published a press release to the Jerusalem Press talking about how he supported the IDF financially. Actor Mark Ruffalo recently reminded people he said this, and Zionist organizations are denouncing him as an "anti-semite" for reminding people of this.

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slowin 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The Ellisons already control way too many media outlets and have started instituting censorship on TikTok. They are aggressively Zionist and I think it's bad for our nation (and the world) to have a pro-Israel media empire feeding propaganda to people. Look at what CBS has become, Bari Weiss is fully control of the agenda and stories coming out of it.

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thayne 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I can think of several reasons why an average person might be opposed to a merger (ex. less competition and the things that go along with that like higher prices and lower quality, and fear that products and services will be discontinued after the merge). But I'm struggling to come up with a good reason why you would support a merger.

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JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> I'm struggling to come up with a good reason why you would support a merger

If I were a loyal Spirit Airlines customer, I’d have supported their proposed merger. Similarly, when an artist I love gets greenlit by a major studio, it’s news worth celebrating—they’re getting more resources at their disposal.

(To be clear, I think the Paramount merger is a travesty, but mostly due to corruption rather than anything intrinsic to Hollywood needing protecting.)

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xp84 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Agree. I'm also remembering the previous grocery store merger in the western US, where the regulators meddled and, while they did approve the merger, they forced a large number of stores to be sold off, but they were sold to a tiny, inexperienced operation who proceeded to go bankrupt within a year, so rather than an area having two "Albertson's" or whatever, all those areas then had one Albertson's and one vacant store. Anybody with sense could have seen that coming and if they didn't want to lose their convenient grocery store altogether, they might have been arguing to simply allow the full merger.

Why not just block that merger? Well, the "non-greed" case for mergers is often that while it may result in a dominant position in a narrowly-defined market ('supermarkets'), they are sometimes needed to preserve the existence of that category as an alternative to another giant that has expanded into a new market, in that case mainly Walmart and to some extent, Amazon, both of which can afford to subsidize something like Ritz Crackers with the profits from selling tires, lawn furniture, or AWS.

You could also consider the Sprint/T-Mobile merger in those terms: Both were circling the drain and really only competing for the most price-sensitive customers, as everyone knew both had inferior service to the other 2 networks. Either or both could have ultimately been liquidated, to the absolute glee of Verizon and AT&T. While it hurts emotionally to think of there being fewer players in that important and specific market of real MNOs, it's true that the MVNOs do seem to be thriving today and, for people who can do even basic research, you can get way better deals (in terms of value and price) on cell phone service today than you could 10 years ago thanks to them, even with fewer 'real' carriers.

Note: None of this is directly relevant to Paramount, which I don't think existentially needs the merger - from either side.

	▲	brendoelfrendo 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> The "non-greed" case for mergers is often that while it may result in a dominant position in a narrowly-defined market ('supermarkets'), they are sometimes needed to preserve the existence of that category as an alternative to another giant that has expanded into a new market, in that case mainly Walmart and to some extent, Amazon, both of which can afford to subsidize something like Ritz Crackers with the profits from selling tires, lawn furniture, or AWS. Ah, but then is the argument that we should allow a merger among smaller players because it prevents a narrowly-defined market from being entirely consumed by larger, broader businesses; or should we argue that the larger, broader businesses that can exert influence over large swaths of the market prevent the existence of a competitive marketplace?

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sleepybrett 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

less places for that artist to shop their film means less of a chance their film gets made. How is that good for you or them?

	▲	JumpCrisscross an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> less places for that artist to shop their film means less of a chance their film gets made When a small studio gets bought by a bigger one, it typically results in more production from the small studio. That’s good if you like their content. They Donny have to waste time shopping films, they’ve already been allocated a budget.

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Hamuko 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A lot of Xbox gamers were excited for Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard back then, presumably because they figured they'd get console exclusives and day one access on Game Pass.

I imagine those people are quiet about it now.

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Mountain_Skies 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Some seem to believe that their favorite IP would get new productions in the merged company but I wonder if those posts were part of the astroturf campaign.

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lokar 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They are threatening to move out of state if the laws are fairly enforced. This concerns workers in the film industry, and people in LA generally.

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alightsoul 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I forgot i don't live in the us. So in Latin America people just call it a day and survive and try to get another job, they don't even know companies lay off or move operations during mergers

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mistrial9 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Hollywood is its own worst enemy. The number of giant scandals and last-minute game changes are innumerable. As is widely documented, the extensive and stable assets of Hollywood studios are not being used on the best of days.

Cry no tears for these leaders.

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freejazz 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't think the poster was crying for those leaders

	▲	lokar an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Correct. The industry employs many many middle and lower income people in LA.

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jubilanti an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Humans have been concerned with monopolization and fair competition since at least Ancient Rome. Entire civilizations routinely revolt when the means of production and distribution are centralized to such an extent that both consumers and small businesses feel the pain.

Something rubs people the wrong way when Crassus became the richest man in the Roman world after buying up all the fire fighting companies, then using that to extort homeowners to sell at a deep discount when they were on fire. That was followed by many reforms that led to a public firefighters.

It was just over 100 years ago when the US went through its Trust Busting era breaking up the oil, steel, and rail. Ordinary people cared a lot about that. Enough to change the course of presidential elections.

Edit: Also, have you ever complained about how all the TV shows and movies these days seem to be the same? Just endless franchises and remakes and product placement and lowest common denominator slop? Well, a good part of that is due to media consolidation, which makes it harder for smaller independent TV and movie studios to compete. The soon-to-be four companies in America that control 80% of mass media are basically hedge funds.

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pwdisswordfishq 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And why would they care what the average person thinks about a merger?

	▲	lokar 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		They (Ellison) don’t. They want to pressure state law enforcement to give them a pass.

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empath75 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

In general, they do not care about particular mergers. US laws regarding unfair competition happened because of abuse by big trusts 100+ years ago, Standard Oil in particular, and the result was a regulatory/legal approval framework. It really shouldn't _matter_ what the public thinks about particular mergers in terms of whether they are approved, but mostly lawsuits to block mergers are brought by states, and in this case, the astroturf campaign was targeted at the California AG, who is an elected official and answers to the public.