It’s the one time of year when bulking season comes with a trophy.
Fat Bear Week kicks off this week at Alaska’s Katmai National Park, where the internet gets to vote on which brown bear has done the most impressive job packing on the pounds ahead of hibernation. This year’s field is looking especially well-fed. One contender has been described as “just a balloon,” while another, Bucky, is “just a giant.”
May the chunkiest bear win.
Stocks were mixed on Tuesday as oil prices continued their recent decline, falling for the fifth straight day on reports that the Saudis were close to restarting a critical pipeline that had been damaged by a Houthi attack last week.
Just how big is Paramount-Warner?
Paramount Skydance on Monday reached a settlement with a dozen states that had sued to block the firm’s acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, paving the way for one company to own an enormous chunk of the media and entertainment market.Â
The settlement removed the last remaining obstacle in closing the $111 billion deal, which would put Spongebob and Bugs Bunny under one roof (among many, many, many other things).Â
Here is a recap of what the combined company would own:Â
News: CNN and CBS, two of the largest broadcast news networks in the country, will be under one owner, along with The Free Press. The settlement calls for the formation of a “News Editorial Independence Board to establish guiding editorial and journalism principles for the combined entity’s news channels.”
Television: The combined company will own more than a dozen major cable networks, including Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, MTV, Showtime and BET just to name a few.
Film studios: One company will now own Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. The settlement requires it to release a minimum of 30 theatrical films per year in the first two years of the decree, increasing to 32 films per year for the following three years. Much of the settlement, led by California, focuses on ensuring the film industry continues employing people. Â
Streaming: HBO Max and Paramount+ now share an owner.Â
Oh and also: David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount Skydance, is the son of Oracle co-founder and executive chairman Larry Ellison. In a deal finalized earlier this year, Oracle now owns a 15% stake in TikTok’s US operations. Combined, the father and son have influence over a solid chunk of what Americans watch on their screens big and small.Â
After a long courthouse saga, Hollywood’s newest mega-merger is going ahead — just with a few strings attached.
The Takeaway:Â
Paramount and Warner Bros are not the first to take advantage of a relaxed antitrust environment under the Trump administration. But few deals concentrate quite as many household-name entertainment brands in one place. Paramount-Warner would put everything from CNN and CBS to HBO, MTV, SpongeBob, Bugs Bunny, Harry Potter and Transformers inside the same corporate empire.
The states that sued argued that this kind of consolidation could mean fewer movies, higher prices and fewer jobs. Rather than break up the deal, the settlement tries to put guardrails around it: Paramount has pledged to invest in film production and release a minimum amount of movies per year.Â
— J. Edward Moreno
Employees are becoming bot bosses — without boss pay
More and more people are “managers” now, but only supervising AI agents. This leaves them with the snazzy title but no pay bump or opportunity to actually practice what they’re good at, Business Insider reports.
That’s how much wealthier Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg got on Monday as investors celebrated the company’s new Muse AI agent, Yahoo Finance reports.
What else we’re Snackin’
GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen bought roughly $26.4 million worth of shares, according to a regulatory filing made public on Monday.Â
Novo (previously known as Novo Nordisk) told CNBC the company is mulling M&A opportunities. The Ozempic maker is on the hunt for its next slate of blockbuster drugs.Â
SpaceX winding down Falcon 9, the world’s busiest rocket, is driving a rocket supply crunch, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Snack Fact of the Day
Brown bears can eat up to 90 pounds of food a day in the run-up to hibernation.
Wednesday
General Mills earnings due out premarket.