Lawmakers ask Department Of Justice to re-investigate Warner Bros. Discovery merger

Even in the ugly world of multi-billion dollar corporate media mergers, the public reception to the blending of Warner Bros. and Discovery over the last year and change has been pretty damn gnarly: Between widespread layoffs, the cancellation of high-profile projects, and the general sense that content people liked is now being removed or obscured to make way for crap they don’t, nobody’s been especially happy about the merger. Now a quartet of Democrats in Congress have issued a letter to the Department Of Justice making that displeasure very formal, asking the DOJ to re-open its review of the merger.

The signatories on the letter are Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)—the latter of whom, we can only assume, is deeply concerned about what all this merger nonsense might mean for her beloved Ballers. In the letter, flagged to both Attorney General Merrick Garland and the DOJ’s antitrust division, the writers raise concerns that WBD will use their merged mass “to adopt potentially anticompetitive
practices that reduce consumer choice and harm workers in affected labor markets.”

Much of the focus in the letter is on labor issues—including extensive layoffs at CNN—but the Congress folk do take time to call out the merger’s effect on “consumer choice,” accusing WBD’s new ownership of “hollowing out an iconic American studio” and, yes, bringing up the cancellation of Batgirl. (They’re also not wild about the smooshing together of HBO Max and Discovery+, writing that, “With fewer alternatives available to consumers, there is
less competitive pressure on WBD to innovate or provide a variety of quality content.”)

The WBD merger was completed last year; at the time, the DOJ didn’t challenge the merger after a review.

[via Deadline]