Culture secretary Lisa Nandy will ask the competition and media watchdogs to probe Paramount’s £85bn acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery to ensure the mega-deal doesn’t stifle the breadth of Britain’s media ecosystem. The Wigan MP said on Tuesday that she planned to authorise both the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)
Ali Lyon
Tuesday 30 June 2026 5:37 pm
Culture secretary Lisa Nandy will ask the competition and media watchdogs to probe Paramount’s £85bn acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery to ensure the mega-deal doesn’t stifle the breadth of Britain’s media ecosystem.
The Wigan MP said on Tuesday that she planned to authorise both the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Ofcom to examine the impact of the deal, which will see two of America’s largest media titans brought under one roof.
“Following engagement with the parties and independent research, my department has today written to the current and proposed owners of Warner Bros Discovery on my behalf to inform them that I am minded to intervene,” Nandy said, in a written statement to Parliament.
The intervention comes nearly half a year after Paramount emerged victorious from a fierce bidding war with Netflix for Warner Bros Discovery, the production juggernaut behind films like Harry Potter and which owns both TNT Sports and the Discovery Channel.
Paramount – whose chief executive David Ellison is the son of centi-billionaire Trump donor Larry – had several bids rebuffed by the Warner board, but got a deal over the line after offering to fork out a bumper 139 per cent premium on the studio’s pre-buyout valuation.
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The $111bn mega-deal was green-lit by the US Justice Department earlier this month, paving the way for the creation of what will be the world’s largest film studio. But the newly merged production juggernaut will also bring together a coterie of news and media outlets – including Channel 5, HBO and CNN – prompting Nandy to kick off a regulatory probe on its ramifications for the UK media ecosystem.
The culture secretary said that despite the acquisition’s global nature, there was merit in examining whether the deal was against “the UK public interest” and threatened the “range of services available to UK audiences”.
She has given Paramount and Warner until 6 July to respond and said she was committed to completing the review in “a timely manner”.
A spokesperson for Paramount said: “We are confident that our proposed transaction does not pose any media plurality issues in the UK and remain confident in our stated transaction timeline.
“We are grateful for the continued constructive engagement with all interested government bodies and relevant authorities, including in the UK.”
The intervention marks the second of its kind that Nandy, who has served as culture minister for the duration of Starmer’s premiership, has kicked off in the space of a few months. The former Labour leadership contender had launched a similar process in January, after the Daily Mail’s owner agreed a deal to buy The Telegraph.
But the Daily Mail General Trust’s bid was ultimately trumped by a more attractive offer from German publisher Axel Springer, meaning the CMA and Ofcom investigations were no longer necessary.
Read more CMA launches antitrust probe into Hollywood’s mega merger
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