The British government suggested Tuesday it may challenge Paramount Skydance’s blockbuster $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, a merger that has drawn scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Lisa Nandy, the United Kingdom’s culture and media secretary, expressed concerns about concentrating “control” of media assets in the hands of fewer corporate owners.
“Following engagement with the parties and independent research, my department has today written to the current and proposed owners of Warner Bros Discovery on my behalf to inform them that I am minded to intervene,” Nandy said in a statement.
In the statement, Nandy highlighted the need to ensure “a sufficient plurality of views in news media” and “a sufficient plurality of persons with control of the media enterprises, or the enterprises providing on-demand program services.”
Nandy set a July 6 deadline for the companies to reply.
Paramount Skydance spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement shared with Sky News, the company said it was “confident that our proposed transaction does not pose any media plurality issues in the U.K.”
Separately, the U.K.’s top antitrust watchdog continues to carry out a review of how the proposed merger would affect British economic competition and the country’s media consumers.
The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority is set to announce the next steps in that investigation in early August.
The U.S. Department of Justice has already cleared Paramount Skydance’s tie-up with Warner Bros. Discovery, a union that would put two historic Hollywood film studios and a sprawling portfolio of television assets under the same roof.
The Justice Department’s antitrust division, in an unusually lengthy statement earlier this month, said “the transaction is not likely to result in harm to competition or American consumers.”
The acquisition still faces scrutiny from state attorneys general across the U.S., who could sue to block the deal. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has said his office is investigating the transaction, and New York Attorney General Letitia James is doing the same, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Paramount Skydance’s holdings include the CBS broadcast network, a suite of cable channels and the Paramount+ streaming service. Warner Bros. Discovery is the parent company of HBO, CNN and intellectual property like the Batman franchise.
In the U.K., the combined company would also control Channel 5, one of just four primary public service broadcasters.
Paramount Skydance is run by the 43-year-old mogul David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder of the technology firm Oracle and an ally of President Donald Trump, who has called for new ownership of CNN.
The proposed merger has divided Hollywood’s rank-and-file, with more than 5,500 actors, directors, producers and screenwriters signing an open letter vehemently opposing it. They have warned consolidation would lead to fewer buyers for film and television content, shrink the pool of jobs and spike costs for consumers.
Paramount has repeatedly touted the benefits of the transaction, and Ellison has attempted to reassure Hollywood’s creative community by promising to put 30 movies a year in theaters.