DAVID FOLKENFLIK, HOST:
The U.S. Justice Department just gave a green light to the biggest merger in Hollywood history. Paramount's takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery would unify rival TV and movie studios, major streaming services and franchises like "Star Trek" with DC Comics. It would also put CBS News and CNN under the same roof. The deal, which was arranged by Trump allies Larry and David Ellison, isn't all the way there yet, but people are already speculating what this deal could mean for the networks and for the rest of us. Jonathan Klein, a former executive vice president of CBS News and a past president of CNN/U.S., joins us now. Jon, welcome.
JON KLEIN: Thanks, David. It's nice to be here.
FOLKENFLIK: So, Jon Klein, if this deal goes through, what would it mean for two of the nation's five most prominent TV news networks to be owned by the same company?
KLEIN: Well, we're about to find out, but it means that there's an incredible pooling of resources and talent and vision and commitment. And it also means a hand on the lever for Ellison with enormous reach into what we hear and understand about what's going on in the world. And I don't know that you're going to see sweeping changes right away. It's sort of like when a snake eats a deer, and, you know, the deer just lives inside for a couple of months, and I think we're going to see some of that in this case.
FOLKENFLIK: So let's talk more about these particular owners. Larry Ellison and his son, David, who we've mentioned, have aligned themselves with President Trump as they seek his administration's approval to acquire Warner Bros. They've essentially enmeshed their business interest with the president's political interests. Trump has, in turn, said he wants them to get control of CNN, to buy it. How might they run CNN?
KLEIN: News has always been kind of a bother for these large entertainment organizations. And you wonder whether they're going to hit a point where they just decide that, you know, now that they've made news a much bigger part of their ownership portfolio, whether it's even worth the bother. But they would be wise to come in with some sort of general intention, but then it takes a moment to take stock of what the assets are and what works and what doesn't.
FOLKENFLIK: But let's look at the Ellisons' record so far. They only took over CBS's parent company, Paramount, last summer. David Ellison picked a new editor in chief who had a strong idea of what she wanted to achieve - Bari Weiss, a founder of this center-right views and news site, The Free Press. And she felt CBS had been too reflexively against the president, too reflexively pro-woke, too reflexively against Israel. Since then, there's been an extraordinary degree of strife. There have been resignations and firings, accusations of bias. What does that tell us about how the Ellisons have, at least to date, approached, you know, owning a major American news division?
KLEIN: I think that when you look at what they have actually aired, the actual news output has not become Fox News Jr. Yes, we've heard accounts from behind the scenes of especially the "60 Minutes" reporters, complaining that there was editorial interference and all like that. But the issue there so far has not been as much about ideology as it has been about change management or, in this case, mismanagement. It's been a classic study in what not to do.
FOLKENFLIK: It does involve a huge infusion of money to make this deal possible. Even with the wealth of Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, one of the richest people on the planet. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund would hold 15% of the combined company. Foreign ownership would be just about half. That's technically illegal and would have to be approved or given waivers. Trump's chief broadcast regulator, Brendan Carr, has signaled he wants this deal to go through and that he would approve it. How big a deal is that to be part of this equation?
KLEIN: It's certainly an inflection point because it would have been unheard of in the past. I mean, even Rupert Murdoch had to go get U.S. citizenship in order to buy up a lot of TV stations in the United States to get around those laws. But now it's going to be about, what's the end result? Does that mean that CNN has to start broadcasting the Saudi line? And for that to happen, it comes down to individuals in a newsroom who would have to agree to suspend their journalistic standards in order to do that. That's a lot of ifs, and I'd be surprised if that happened very easily.
FOLKENFLIK: So given all that you've described, what's ahead for journalists and the news we consume if this acquisition, this merger, comes to pass?
KLEIN: You know, people get their information from so many different sources right now that the impact of this merger is not likely to be as cataclysmic or as obvious as it might have been even 10 years ago, but certainly 20 years ago. But I think as far as what you see day in and day out on CNN, I don't know that you're going to notice a radical difference. They've sort of gotten what they wanted, that is, you know, Paramount and Ellison. And so Trump's leverage becomes less. The midterms could have an impact on that leverage as well. And it could very well be that by the time they get their arms around the merger of these organizations, the ideology to whatever extent it's already been at play, the ideology might actually become even less important than it was before, or the signaling. Because I don't know how much of this is real and how much of this is just virtue signaling to the White House that, see, we're taking steps. We're doing what you wanted.
FOLKENFLIK: I've been speaking with Jonathan Klein. He's former president of CNN/U.S. and a past executive vice president of CBS News. Jon, thanks for joining us.
KLEIN: Thank you, David.
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