Skydance Swallows CNN Tomorrow — And Swears the News Will Stay "Independent"
Tomorrow, Paramount closes its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery and the combined company becomes Skydance. Mark Thompson stays atop CNN, Bari Weiss doesn't get it, and the two newsrooms stay separate.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, October 6, Paramount closes its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, and the combined company takes the Skydance name. David Ellison — Larry Ellison's son — becomes chairman and CEO, with former Mattel chief Ynon Kreiz as co-CEO. CNN, HBO, Warner's studios, and the cable networks move under that roof alongside Paramount, CBS, and Paramount+.
The question hanging over the deal was who runs the news — and Skydance answered it today. Mark Thompson stays as CNN's chairman and editor-in-chief. He's run the network since 2023 and will report to Ellison and Kreiz. Bari Weiss remains editor-in-chief of CBS News and does not take CNN. The two newsrooms are not being merged. Thompson's title shifts from chairman and CEO to chairman and editor-in-chief, but he told staff he keeps "the same responsibilities and prerogatives" and will lead CNN as an independent editor-in-chief.
It was the same question CNN's own anchors were joking about this morning. On News Central, anchor John Berman set up chief media analyst Brian Stelter with this: "Let's get right to CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter, who can answer the question of, who I work for tomorrow." The answer, as of tomorrow: Skydance.
Thompson's memo, which ran on air, leaned hard on the independence theme. He said he is "convinced that from David Ellison on down, Paramount Skydance leadership really does believe in news alongside entertainment as a top strategic opportunity," and that he has "real confidence that they both understand and will fully support the principle and practice of the kind of independent news that CNN has always stood for."
That closing only happened because California's top prosecutor let the fight settle. Attorney General Rob Bonta led 12 state attorneys general who sued in late July to block the deal, arguing the merger would cut film output, raise prices, and hurt workers and viewers. The suit stalled the deal for about two months.
On September 21, Bonta announced a settlement and dropped the case — and he was blunt that it wasn't an endorsement. "This settlement is not a vote of support for this merger," he said. "I don't think these companies should merge." The five-year, court-enforceable terms: at least 30 theatrical films a year for the first two years, then 32 a year for the next three (miss the number and Paramount must divest Miramax, plus a penalty); at least $1.5 billion more in U.S. film production over five years above 2025 spending; a $47.5 million fund for workers hit by the merger and a ban on closing the Melrose and Burbank studio lots; separate cable-channel negotiations or forced sale of channels including BET, VH1, and Comedy Central; and a five-member News Editorial Independence Board of journalists, set up within 180 days of closing, to watch CBS News and CNN for interference from ownership.
A federal judge in Oakland, Araceli Martínez-Olguín, approved the settlement on September 30 — the last state roadblock. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong had pushed to spin CNN off entirely and said he was "deeply disappointed" the coalition settled short of that. The editorial board was the substitute.
So the sequence is: Bonta's September settlement, the judge's September 30 approval, tomorrow's close, and today's announcement that Thompson stays, Weiss doesn't get CNN, and the two newsrooms stay separate. That's the question Berman was poking at when he asked who Stelter works for tomorrow — and the answer is a company promising, on paper, to keep its hands off the news.