CNN staffers brace for layoffs as Paramount-Warner Bros. deal clears final hurdle
by The Washington Times AI News Desk · The Washington TimesAnxiety is rippling through CNN’s newsroom after Paramount Skydance cleared the last major legal obstacle to its takeover of parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, with staffers describing a mood ranging from dread to outright panic over potential layoffs.
Paramount reached a settlement Monday, pending court approval, with a coalition of 12 state attorneys general who had sued in July to block the deal, which values Warner Bros. Discovery at $110 billion in enterprise value, or about $81 billion in equity. The agreement requires Paramount to maintain film-production commitments, contribute to a $47.5 million worker fund, and establish a News Editorial Independence Board intended to protect editorial independence at CNN and CBS News, according to Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield’s office, one of the states in the coalition.
Paramount has said the merger is expected to yield more than $6 billion in synergies, which the company has attributed to technology integration, procurement savings and real estate consolidation rather than headcount reductions specifically. Even so, the scale of that savings target has fueled expectations inside CNN that layoffs will follow once the deal closes.
Staffers described a newsroom on edge. “It’s dark. It’s like when you do hurricane coverage,” one CNN staffer said, according to a New York Post report cited by Breitbart. A television executive predicted “bloodbath coming, including at CNN.”
Much of the unease centers on Paramount Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison, whose father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, is a major donor to groups supporting President Trump. CNN staffers have watched Mr. Ellison install Bari Weiss atop CBS News — another Paramount-owned outlet — where she has made significant changes to its staffing and programming, and many fear a similar overhaul awaits CNN once the deal closes. There is no confirmed Paramount plan to alter CNN’s editorial direction, and the settlement’s News Editorial Independence Board provision is explicitly meant to guard against that outcome.
Those worries aren’t new. As far back as June, CNN staff were reportedly so unsettled by the merger that they turned to CNN talent chief Amy Entelis for reassurance, with her office described as a makeshift “psychiatrist’s couch” for anxious anchors and correspondents.
CNN Chief Executive Mark Thompson is scheduled to hold a staff town hall Wednesday to address the merger, though it remains unclear how much clarity he can offer before the transaction formally closes.
CNN was founded June 1, 1980, by media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld and is headquartered in Atlanta.
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