--- title: "A Deal the Groups Say Gives the Public ‘Virtually Nothing’ Goes Before a Judge" description: "California’s settlement over the Paramount merger rests on a five-year cable clause critics call riddled with carve-outs" author: "Walter Pine" published: 2026-09-25T18:42:57Z modified: 2026-09-26T23:07:23Z url: https://rews.cc/a/a-deal-the-groups-say-gives-the-public-virtually-nothing-goe-785a2a language: en tags: ["mergers", "media", "antitrust", "cable", "paramount", "us"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # A Deal the Groups Say Gives the Public ‘Virtually Nothing’ Goes Before a Judge *California’s settlement over the Paramount merger rests on a five-year cable clause critics call riddled with carve-outs* By Walter Pine · September 25, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/a-deal-the-groups-say-gives-the-public-virtually-nothing-goe-785a2a ## In brief - Settlement requires five years of separate carriage talks for Paramount and Warner Bros. basic cable channels - The condition excludes premium cable, streaming and broadcast; filing says that leaves room for leverage - Bonta: deal guarantees film production investment and enforceable guardrails but is “not a vote of support” - Writers Guild settled its own suit: five-year CBS News layoff ban and $17.5 million for its health fund - Four other states dropped their fight, judging the cost unjustifiable without California, per Bloomberg The operative clause runs five years. Under the settlement that Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, brought to a judge this month, the company to be formed by Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery must negotiate the licensing of basic cable channels separately — one set of talks for the channels Paramount owns, another for the channels arriving with Warner, as though the two businesses had not been joined into one. It is, in the technical vocabulary of antitrust, a conduct remedy: not a prohibition on the merger itself, but a rule about how the merged firm must behave afterward. Bonta’s office said the condition would preserve “the existing competitive dynamic between the companies” and, by extension, help “keep prices down for consumers.” The accord ended a lawsuit brought against the merger by [twelve state attorneys general](https://variety.com/2026/film/news/paramount-warner-bros-merger-settlement-1236819465/), led by Bonta. According to the [Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2026-09-21/paramount-attorneys-general-settle-antitrust-lawsuit-warner-bros-bonta), the agreement fell short of some changes Bonta had pushed for, including forcing Paramount to divest cable channels — though it carries a backstop: if Paramount fails to honor the separate-negotiation pledge, it must sell off BET, VH1, Comedy Central, Smithsonian, Destination America and Science. ## The carve-outs Absent from the five-year condition is nearly everything television viewers have been migrating toward. The separate-negotiation rule does not touch premium cable channels, streaming services, or broadcast content. In this particular transaction, that means a combined HBO and Showtime, a combined HBO Max and Paramount Plus, and the CBS broadcast network all sit outside the fence. A filing by free-speech and media groups opposing the settlement — a filing that told the judge the conditions give the public “virtually nothing,” in the framing of Ars Technica’s account — put the arithmetic plainly: “the Combined Entity still would be free to use its power in other offerings—a combined HBO and Showtime (premium cable channels), a combined HBO Max and Paramount Plus (streaming services), and CBS (broadcast)—to extract higher prices in basic cable negotiations, as this form of leveraging is carved out.” The negotiation clause also leaves standing, the filing said, one of the states’ underlying allegations: that joining the two companies’ cable portfolios would mean reduced investment in basic cable channels. A five-year rule governing how channels are priced is not, the groups noted, a rule about whether the channels continue to be worth watching. ## Not a vote of support Bonta has framed the outcome as the best obtainable end to a difficult case. The settlement, he said, will guarantee “massive investment in domestic film production and provid\[e\] enforceable guardrails to help keep cable prices competitive.” His fuller statement reads like a man describing a compromise rather than a victory: the deal “is not a vote of support for this merger. But we believe this settlement, which resolves our antitrust concerns in every market alleged in our case, protects competition and consumer choice, and puts workers’ needs, concerns, and futures first, is the best course of action.” The Writers Guild of America reached its own reluctant settlement after learning of the California agreement. Its terms bar writer layoffs in the CBS News broadcast division for five years and require Paramount to pay $17.5 million into the guild’s health fund. The guild was unsparing about why it folded its lawsuit: “We continue to believe the merger will cause damage to writers and the industry at large. Now that the attorneys general have settled with Paramount, however, as a nonprofit, the WGA must contend with the reality of forging ahead alone, with no backing from government enforcers, with a complex antitrust lawsuit that would cost millions of dollars to pursue through trial.” The guild was not alone in that arithmetic. Bloomberg reported that attorneys general in Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut and Minnesota initially opposed the Paramount–California deal but “concluded the expense of the legal battle was not justifiable without California at the helm.” What remains is the judge. Federal settlements of this kind pass through judicial review — a process rooted in the [Tunney Act](https://prospect.org/2026/08/14/paramounts-merger-strategy-empty-promises-threats-justice-department-antitrust/), the law that asks a court to confirm that such a decree serves the public and, as the judge put it, did not result from collusion. On one side of the ledger sits a five-year negotiation rule with a divestiture backstop; on the other, a combined premium-cable business, a combined streaming service and a broadcast network, none of them covered. The condition runs five years. The merger does not.