Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) had sharp words for Paramount CEO David Ellison ahead of a hearing probing potential competition problems posed by the company’s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.
Booker invited Ellison to testify, highlighting “significant concerns” that’ve been raised about the deal and the mogul’s refusal to testify at a prior hearing, according to a Monday letter viewed by The Hollywood Reporter.
“As the leader of the company seeking to execute one of the largest media mergers in American history, your continued unwillingness to engage with Congressional oversight is itself a matter of public concern,” wrote the top Democrat of the Senate antitrust subcommittee.
On Wednesday, Booker is hosting a hearing to examine anticompetitive impacts of the deal. It’ll discuss potential fallout from a merger between two of the five biggest studios in Hollywood and two major news networks. Expected witnesses include Academy Award winner David Borenstein, who directed Mr. Nobody Against Putin; Michael Isaac, WGA East director of legal services; lawyer and political commentator Katie Phang; and Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund who’s also on the steering committee of Jane Fonda’s Committee for the First Amendment.
The letter extending an invitation for Ellison to testify follows Fonda’s group on Monday releasing a letter signed by more than 1,000 writers, actors and directors opposing Paramount’s bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. They warned that the deal will result in “fewer opportunities for creators, fewer jobs across the production ecosystem, higher costs and less choice for audiences in the United States and around the world.”
In the letter to Ellison, Booker underscores Paramount’s response to the letter stating that the merger will ensure that creative have “more avenues for their work, not fewer” and that the combined company will “greenlight more projects.”
“These are serious commitments,” Booker wrote. “This forum is an opportunity for you to make them directly to Congress and to the workers, journalists, and creators whose livelihoods depend on whether those promises are kept.”
At a February hearing over Netflix’s proposed $83 billion purchase for Warner Bros. Discovery, Booker criticized Ellison’s decision not to testify on behalf of Paramount.
Wednesday’s hearing will be livestreamed here. It follows another spotlight hearing over the merger convened by Sen. Adam Schiff, who’s looking to build support for a federal tax incentive to bring jobs back stateside.
