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Benedict Cumberbatch, Alan Cumming and Benedict Wong have urged the U.K. government to intervene in the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros merger, saying it “threatens to inflict immense harm on the British public.”
In an
op-ed addressed to culture minister Lisa Nandy, the trio said her intervention could be “prove one of the most important decisions any culture secretary has taken for UK film, television and media in a generation.”
They argue that the merger will result in “redundancies, cancelled productions, fewer films commissioned and fewer risks taken,” although they acknowledge that aspect of the merger is less within Nandy’s remit than the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which is also reviewing the deal. Nandy’s is to decide whether the merger is in the public interest, to which Cumberbatch, Cumming and Wong say “It most certainly is not.” The trio point to the fact that Paramount currently owns public service broadcaster Channel 5 as well as CBS in the States: the acquisition of WBD would see CNN and CNN International also come under the same umbrella.
“If one commercially interested owner controls access to both [the CNN and CBS news archives], they control the raw material of our historical memory,” the op-ed, published in the Guardian, states.
“Nandy has opened the door to intervention. She must walk through it, for the sake of everyone who makes U.K. television and film – and everyone who watches it. If she does not, we will be left without the ability to protect our industry and our culture from this consolidation. We must not push the public’s interest aside; we must stand up for it and block this merger.”
Nandy has already said she is “minded to intervene” in the deal, although Parliament is now in recess until Sept. 1. The culture secretary, who managed to cling on to her job in the wake of a cabinet reshuffle by incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham, currently has a number of high-profile media matters to attend to, including the equally if not more impactful acquisition of ITV by Comcast-owned Sky as well as the BBC’s royal charter renewal.
Last week the European Commission approved the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, albeit with some conditions.
In the U.S., however, it is facing opposition from numerous sources. As of Friday, Paramount agreed to postpone the merger until after an antitrust trial.
