Paramount Skydance Eyeing CNN as Part of Warner Bros. Bid

The fight to buy Warner Bros. Discovery is turning into a four-way cage match between Paramount Skydance, Comcast, Netflix, and a Saudi investment firm. But one factor may be giving David Ellison’s team a real edge: CNN.

The New York Post is reporting that Paramount Skydance’s proposal stands out because Ellison and his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, see potential in CNN’s global reach. They want to take over the cable-news network, not bury it. “They see CNN, warts and all, as a very profitable business worth saving,” one industry insider told the paper.

That phrase “warts and all” sums up the political storm behind this bid. The Ellisons reportedly view CNN as a valuable brand facing an identity crisis. Former President Donald Trump has made no secret of his hostility toward the network, which has spent years targeting him. One insider quoted by the Post said Trump “wants the Ellisons to do to CNN what they are doing with their CBS subsidiary” after CBS brought on columnist Bari Weiss to help curb newsroom bias.

If Skydance wins, Weiss could take an expanded role, possibly supervising editorial standards across both CBS and CNN. That prospect has rattled media circles already anxious about what happens when editorial accountability replaces ideological loyalty.

“The Ellisons will get the white-glove treatment and an easy six months before approval,” one telecom lawyer told the Post. “Brian Roberts [Comcast] gets a proctology exam that could last two years. Same with Netflix.” The lawyer added that the Warner board might decide it’s “not worth the wait.” In short, money isn’t the only factor here. Political optics and regulatory headaches will decide who takes control of one of America’s biggest media giants.

CNN may no longer dominate cable news, but its global operations still rake in about $500 million a year. That’s the kind of stability investors crave — and what makes the Ellisons’ pitch hard to match.

Commentator Paul Chato, known for his sharp takes on Hollywood and tech culture, points to a deeper media realignment: “The legacy news networks don’t know who their audience is anymore,” he said. In another moment, he added, “We’re watching billion-dollar companies finally admit their politics are losing them money.”

The bigger question is whether a conservative-funded reboot of CNN would actually reform it — or simply expose how far the press has drifted from the people it claims to serve. If CNN can’t be salvaged by the Ellisons, who can save it at all?

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