Speakers at a rally in Los Angeles on Saturday framed the proposed Paramount Skydance acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery as a direct threat to jobs and the creative infrastructure that supports film and television production in the United States.
Stand-up comedian Adam Conover, a featured speaker at the event held at Lumiere Music Hall, described broad industry consolidation as an existential danger to a sector he said once made the United States a cultural powerhouse: "It’s about to die, and that’s why I feel so passionately about this issue," he said.
The gathering, which organizers billed as the first stop on a three-city "Main Street vs. The Merger" tour, brought together entertainment workers, small business owners and politicians who oppose the proposed $110 billion transaction through which Paramount Skydance would absorb Warner Bros. Discovery. The event drew roughly 100 attendees and was organized by advocacy groups together with the Writers Guild of America and industry workers seeking to air concerns over the combination.
Paramount Skydance has argued the merger will not harm other studios or creative talent. The company’s chief executive, David Ellison, has publicly pledged that the merged entity would remain productive by releasing at least 30 films per year. A Paramount spokesperson told attendees and the public that the merged companies would have "every economic incentive" to expand production of the quality content consumers demand and said that opposing the deal would mean opposing "expanded consumer choice, new opportunities for creators and workers, and greater competition throughout the creative ecosystem - the opposite of what antitrust law is meant to achieve."
Despite those assurances, at least a group of U.S. states, including California and New York, are preparing a lawsuit intended to block the transaction, according to sources familiar with the matter. The prospect of state-led litigation contrasts with indications that federal antitrust regulators appear poised to approve the combination.
Speakers at the Los Angeles event drew on personal experiences to illustrate the potential consequences of consolidation. Conover cited the cancellation of his TruTV show "Adam Ruins Everything" following AT&T’s 2018 acquisition of Time Warner, an outcome he said left employees, "countless" contractors and more than 100 other people without work.
Those job impacts are consistent with broader employment trends in the entertainment sector, where employment has declined since its late-2022 peak. California has been particularly affected, shedding 17,234 positions from 2019 through 2023, according to an analysis by the Milken Institute. The institute attributed those losses to a combination of factors identified in its report - including shrinking television advertising revenue and stagnating streaming growth - that have pushed studios to seek lower-cost production locations.
Industry data cited at the event points to a decline in utilization of key production assets. Film LA, the non-profit that coordinates filming across greater Los Angeles, reported that the occupancy rate for Hollywood sound stages fell to 62% in the first half of 2025, down from nearly full occupancy in 2016. Meanwhile, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents roughly 170,000 behind-the-scenes professionals, has indicated its members worked about 36% fewer hours than in 2022.
Matt Radecki, a co-founder of Different by Design, a post-production facility in Los Angeles, said he fears the proposed merger could reduce the number of buyers for certain documentary films. He pointed specifically to the Oscar-winning "Navalny," which was produced by two Warner units - HBO Max and CNN Films - as an example of the type of project that could face fewer avenues for distribution and sale if consolidation continues.
"This is the biggest thing that we’ve faced," Radecki told attendees. "The places we work with are closed ... They’re gone, and they’re never coming back, and we don’t want to see that happen to HBO or CNN or CNN Films."
Legal experts and former regulators at the rally discussed possible avenues to challenge the deal. Former Federal Trade Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya expressed optimism that California Attorney General Rob Bonta could mount a successful challenge, arguing the transaction would reduce competition among film studios and therefore indirectly harm workers.
It is also legally feasible in the United States to contest a merger on the grounds that it would reduce competition for particular types of labor. Protesters and some economists said California could point to a recent precedent in which antitrust authorities focused on labor competition. Ioana Marinescu, a University of Pennsylvania economist who contributed to the Biden-era Justice Department’s guidance on labor market issues, suggested that for some workers the two companies involved in the proposed deal represent irreplaceable employment opportunities.
"For some workers it could be that jobs at these two companies are really special, and this is really what they want," Marinescu said. "And there isn’t necessarily a very close substitute. And those are the people for whom it’s going to make an adverse impact."
As the debate continues, the merger’s outcome remains uncertain. Paramount Skydance’s public commitments on production volume and the company’s contention that the deal would benefit consumers and creators sit alongside documented declines in jobs and stage occupancy that critics say are driven in part by consolidation and shifting revenue dynamics in the industry.
Stakeholders convening in Los Angeles signaled they intend to press their case in multiple forums - in the public arena, in court and in the court of public opinion - as states weigh legal action and companies make competing claims about the deal’s likely effects on production, employment and creative choice.