UK gives effective green light to Paramount Warner Bros mega deal after assurances provided

The UK will now not intervene in one of the biggest media deals in history after assurances were provided to the government.

UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said in June she was "minded" to intervene in Paramount Skydance's $110bn (£81.4bn) acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) over public interest concerns.

But a statement from her department on Thursday said she would not due to the legally binding commitments provided to her by Paramount.

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The media and entertainment conglomerate said it would invest £80m in the UK and ensure the news brands it acquired would remain editorially separate, as would the children's TV channels.

It has promised that Channel 5 will continue to operate as a public service broadcaster and be separate to the US news brands it owns: CNN and CBS.

It added that CNN International will continue to be available in the UK.

A letter from the company to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said it had "no intention to change Channel 5's commissioning strategy, scheduling approach, news provision, UK origination levels, children's content".

Paramount has agreed to make the assurances legally binding.

The deal is now effectively green lit by the UK as competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority, decided there are no aspects necessitating its intervention.

Ms Nandy said, however, she will be meeting with Paramount in the coming weeks seeking assurances about the impact of the deal on wider creative industries.

Why does it matter?

Ms Nandy had expressed concern over media plurality and the shrinking number of news media owners.

Fears for streaming service concentration had also been voiced.

A merger of WBD and Paramount Skydance is one of the biggest media deals in history, with significant impacts on TV, filmmaking, and the possible future of the cinema.

Other entities that would be owned by Paramount Skydance and WBD in the event of a deal include TNT Sports, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon, as well as the Paramount+ and HBO Max streaming services.

TV channels will remain distinct from the streaming services, the UK government was assured.

The joining of two of Hollywood's five legacy studios could prompt cinema operators' concerns over possible reductions in jobs and the ​number ⁠of films released in theatres.

The company is also headed by David Ellison, the son of Trump-ally Larry Ellison, who put up tens of billions of dollars to satisfy funding guarantees for the WBD bid.

While the EU has approved the takeover, regulatory approval is still required in the US, where state attorneys general led by California have sought to block the deal on antitrust grounds.

(c) Sky News 2026: UK gives effective green light to Paramount Warner Bros mega deal after assurances provided