{"id":520057,"date":"2026-01-16T09:48:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/520057\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T09:48:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:48:16","slug":"paramounts-david-ellison-meets-with-uk-culture-secretary-in-wbd-lobbying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/520057\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount’s David Ellison Meets With UK Culture Secretary In WBD Lobbying"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tParamount<\/a> CEO David Ellison<\/a> this week met with UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Lisa Nandy as well as prominent European creatives, Deadline hears from sources, as the studio took its fight for Warner Bros Discovery overseas.<\/p>\n

\n\tBloomberg earlier reported that top Paramount executives convened with French President Emmanuel Macron and EU regulators in a European charm offensive seemingly designed to shore up support for a hostile takeover bid<\/a>. It\u2019s attempting to derail a Warner Bros. deal with Netflix<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe EU would need to approve either agreement.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe hear from sources that the preservation of cinema was a key talking point for Ellison during his meetings this week. That\u2019s likely to play well with European leaders, especially in France, which has always had strict theatrical windowing \u2014 so much so that the Cannes Film Festival refuses to play Netflix<\/a> films in its Competition lineup.<\/p>\n

\n\tHollywood has been equally concerned over what a Netflix acquisition of Warner Bros Studios would mean for the future of theatrical releasing, which has suffered a series of body blows since Covid. The streamer has mostly skirted movie theaters, although it recently attempted to soften its stance.<\/p>\n

\n\tExperts who keep a close eye on the European Commission\u2019s competition work told Deadline after the $83 billion cash and stock Netflix transaction was announced<\/a> that it would be surprising if the streamer\u2019s agreement was vetoed, but said any deal would likely trigger an investigation that could recommend merger conditions. They suggested remedies could include compelling Netflix to honor and maintain film and TV licensing agreements to prevent it from holding a monopoly over content.<\/p>\n

\n\tParamount and regulatory experts in the U.S. and UK have zeroed in on streaming market share dominance \u2014 by combining the world\u2019s biggest OTT service with HBO Max \u2014 as Netflix\u2019 biggest potential obstacle. Stateside at least that will depend on the definition of video market, which Netflix argues also includes giants YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and others. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWBD<\/a> put itself up for sale last fall and inked an agreement with Netflix in December, rejecting a rival $30-a-share all-cash offer from Paramount. The company led by Ellison, whose father is Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, took its bid directly to WBD stockholders amid a massive PR battle as well as a court fight. Paramount earlier today lost a bid to fast-track a suit<\/a> seeking additional financial disclosures from WBD around the sale process.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a multi-pronged attack, Paramount also said it\u2019s planning a proxy fight and will put up an alternate slate of directors for a vote at WBD\u2019s annual meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paramount CEO David Ellison this week met with UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Lisa…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":520058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,32129,4659,15329,67,132,68,27281,66550],"class_list":{"0":"post-520057","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-david-ellison","10":"tag-netflix","11":"tag-paramount","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-warner-bros-discovery","16":"tag-wbd"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115904151856408392","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}