Warner Bros employees fear Paramount merger after CBS News takeover: Report

Warner Brothers Discovery employees were notably concerned about the future of the studio at a town hall Friday morning after Netflix dropped its bid to acquire the company because Paramount made a superior offer.Netflix dropped its offer Thursday after declining to match the bid from Paramount that was offering $31 per share of the company, compared to Netflix’s $28. Paramount also offered a $7 billion termination fee to Netflix and offered solutions to WBD’s debt financing costs and obligation.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav tried to sell the looming merger with Paramount as a good thing to his team, but unidentified employees told Deadline that “the mood is really bad.”
Some of the employees expressed concern that Paramount would make similar changes to CNN that it made at CBS News, which has notably grown more conservative after tapping Bari Weiss to lead it. CNN was slated to become part of Discovery Global under Netflix but is now expected to be under Paramount’s control.
“[Netflix CEO] Ted [Sarandos] didn’t need the deal, the country needed it because of CNN,” one WBD employee said. “This transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price.”
WBD also had a leadership meeting Friday that reflected on the Paramount deal but neither the leadership meeting nor the town hall included questions from the audience. 
Although Netflix has dropped its offer, the WBD-Paramount deal still needs final approval from the Federal Communications Commission.

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