Viacom18 have revealed a multi-year agreement making JioCinema India’s new streaming home for HBO, Max Original and Warner Bros. content from May. The WBD content had previously been carried on the Disney-owned Star TV platform. But the deal with Star expired at the end of March. WBD sources have confirmed that, except for a handful of shows licensed to third parties, HBO content has been absent from Indian airwaves since the beginning of the month. The new deal is another major victory for Mukesh Ambani, one of India’s richest and most politically influential businessmen. His Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is behind Viacom18 and the JioCinema streaming platform, as well as India’s dominant cellular phone and broadband internet providers.
Lawmakers Want Justice Department To Investigate Warner Bros. Discovery, Claiming Merger Harmed Workers And Reduced Content Choice
07.04.2023 - 19:07 / deadline.com
Four Democratic lawmakers want the Justice Department to investigate Warner Bros. Discovery, claiming that the merged company has harmed workers and reduced consumer choice.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-CA), Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and DOJ antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter that the merger “appears to have enabled” the company to “adopt potentially anticompetitive practices that reduce consumer choice and harm workers in affected labor markets.”
Warner Media and Discovery were combined last year in a transaction that was not challenged by the DOJ after a review.
“The company has the incentive and ability to eliminate broad swaths of its workforce, leaving workers with fewer choices for employment and advancement,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter. (Read it here). They cited the layoffs over the past year, including the shutdown of CNN+, as well as later cuts at CNN and in areas like ad sales.
It would be unusual for the Justice Department to essentially reopen a review of a merger so shortly after it has been completed, but the lawmakers appear to have been bolstered by Kanter’s comments on the DOJ’s concerns over the impact of consolidation on content creators and workers, not just on consumers.
Last year, Justice Department successfully challenged the proposed Penguin Random House merger with Simon & Schuster on the grounds that it would ultimately harm authors. After a federal judge ruled in the government’s favor, the companies abandoned that transaction.
Arguing that the merger has led to the “hollowing out” of an “iconic American studio,” the lawmakers also cited the cancellation of projects and the
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Clint Eastwood’s Next Film ‘Juror #2’ To Star Nicholas Hoult And Toni Collette As Warner Bros. Closes In On Greenlight For Film
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letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Assistant Attorney General Johanthan Kanter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Rep.
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