What Paramount's Warner Bros takeover means for what we watch

Paramount has completed its $US113 billion takeover of Warner Bros Discovery, creating one of the world's biggest entertainment and media companies.

The new company will be led by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, whose family has close ties with US President Donald Trump.

The mega-merger brings some of Hollywood's biggest film, television and news brands under one roof, from The Godfather, Top Gun and Star Trek to Harry Potter, Friends, Game of Thrones and the DC universe.

For audiences, it means an enormous catalogue of movies and television shows is controlled by one company.

It also brings together two businesses already serving Australian audiences, with Paramount's Network 10 and Paramount+ joining Warner Bros Discovery's HBO Max.

But for Hollywood and the wider media industry, there are concerns about what happens when fewer companies control more of the entertainment and news we consume.

Just how big is the new company?

Paramount Skydance is now a huge player in movies, television, streaming and news.

Its stable includes Mission: Impossible, Top Gun, Star Trek, SpongeBob SquarePants, South Park and The Godfather.

Warner Bros Discovery brings Harry Potter, Friends, Game of Thrones, The Last of Us, The Big Bang Theory, Succession, The White Lotus and the DC universe.

Then there's HBO, Warner Bros Television, CNN and CBS, alongside Australia's Network 10.

The deal also reshapes Hollywood's traditional studio landscape, combining two of the five major legacy studios, Paramount and Warner Bros, leaving Disney, Universal Pictures and Sony Pictures as the other three.

David Folkenflik is a media correspondent with NPR and author of Murdoch's World: The Last of the Old Media Empires.

"It's an extraordinary moment for Hollywood and for the media writ large, and it's a moment for corporates and conglomeration as well," Mr Folkenflik said.

"You have these two proud Hollywood titles, Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers Studios under the same roof, you now have CBS News and CNN under the same roof, you have Star Trek and DC Comics under the same roof."

Why are people in Hollywood worried?

The merger comes at a difficult time for the entertainment industry.

Traditional studios are competing with global streaming services, while production costs are rising and audiences are increasingly watching content online.

The new company is also carrying significant debt and has committed to major cost savings.

Hollywood journalist Kim Masters, a former editor-at-large at The Hollywood Reporter, said the company was under significant financial pressure.

"This company is absolutely strapped with debt and needs to, according to the agreement with their lenders, they need to do some things very quickly to get things in shape," Ms Masters said.

"And so therefore, Hollywood is cringing in terms of those lay-offs."

She also said the merger left filmmakers with fewer major studios to approach for funding.

"So we're pretty much down to … Universal, Sony, Apple, but we don't know to what extent Apple is really interested in doing movies," she said. 

"You know, it's just a loss of potentially two studio buyers for that kind of product."

And she said that could make it harder for directors working on films without an obvious commercial appeal to find backing.

"I think it's going to be more difficult for our auteur directors to find that kind of backing," she said.

Does a bigger library mean more choice?

The merger brings together a huge amount of existing content.

But the issue for Hollywood isn't simply how many movies and shows are available. It's how many companies are left deciding what gets made, funded, promoted and distributed.

Professor Matthew Ricketson from Deakin University said the bigger issue was the concentration of media ownership itself.

"Diversity of views, plurality of views and stories … if there is a lack of diversity of them … that is absolutely not a good thing," he said.

What could it mean for streaming prices?

The merger also brings together Paramount+ and HBO Max under the same corporate ownership.

David Folkenflik said consumers would bear some of the cost of the new company's debt.

"It's hard to believe those prices won't go up. I think the consumers are going to be hit," he said.

The company is targeting about $US6 billion a year in savings, and Folkenflik said those savings were likely to come from both staffing and content.

He said that could affect what audiences were ultimately offered.

"And that means that, you know, prices could potentially ramp up and you could see a diminishment of the combined amount of things offered," he said.

And then there's the news

The merger is significant because Paramount Skydance isn't only an entertainment company.

It also has major news interests, including CBS News and CNN, while its Australian operations include Network 10.

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday local time he was a strong supporter of the merger.

"That's great. It's gonna be a great company. They're terrific people and it's going to be a great company," Mr Trump said.

The new owner, David Ellison, is the son of Oracle co-founder and billionaire Larry Ellison, whose family has developed close ties with Mr Trump.

Mr Folkenflik said that relationship was one of the key questions surrounding the takeover.

"I think that's the real question for journalists, and I think it probably is a question for a lot of their audiences at CBS and CNN," he said.

Professor Ricketson said the significance of the merger extended beyond the entertainment industry.

"Skydance will now control two of the five news outlets that currently constitute the pool at the White House, that is CBS News and CNN," he said.

CNN has been in a dispute with the Trump administration over access to the White House, with the network challenging restrictions in court.

Professor Ricketson said the relationship between the new ownership and the Trump administration raised serious questions about editorial independence.

"We've already seen those efforts by the Trump administration trying to kick out of the White House, the access to the White House of CNN, and two other news organisations. And saying they're doing that on the grounds that those outlets are lying or spreading fake news," he said.

He said the issue went to the heart of the relationship between political power and news organisations.

"We've already seen that Donald Trump's idea of favourable coverage is that you say wonderful things about me, terrible things about my opponents. And if you say anything other than that, you are either fake news or you are a hoax or you are lying when in fact, that's absolutely not been the case," he said.

Mr Ellison has said CNN would remain an independent newsroom, with Mark Thompson continuing as its editor-in-chief.

Professor Ricketson said the fundamental question was who got to decide what constituted legitimate reporting.

"Who is determining what are the lies here and who is determining what is the fake news?"

What does it mean for Australians?

For most Australians, there probably won't be an immediate dramatic change.

But two streaming services Australians already use, Paramount+ and HBO Max, are now owned by the same company and are expected to eventually be combined.

It has not yet been announced what the new service will look like, what content it will include or how much it will cost.

Network 10 also gives Skydance a significant presence in the Australian media market, with the company now behind programs including MasterChef Australia, Australian Survivor and 10 News.