Entertainment industry workers gathered in Los Angeles on Saturday to voice opposition to a massive studio merger they believe could devastate their livelihoods.
Stand-up comedian Adam Conover addressed approximately 100 people at Lumiere Music Hall, warning that ongoing media consolidation poses a serious threat to an industry that established the United States as a global cultural leader.
“It’s about to die, and that’s why I feel so passionately about this issue,” Conover told the crowd.
The Saturday event marked the opening of a three-city “Main Street vs. The Merger” tour, bringing together entertainment professionals, small business operators and political figures opposing the proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Paramount Skydance. Advocacy organizations, the Writers Guild of America and concerned industry workers organized the gathering.
Federal antitrust officials appear ready to greenlight the combination after receiving assurances from Paramount Skydance that the transaction won’t harm competing studios or creative professionals. CEO David Ellison has promised the merged Paramount and Warner studios would maintain production levels by distributing a minimum of 30 movies annually.
However, multiple U.S. states including California and New York are preparing legal action to prevent the deal, according to sources who spoke with Reuters on Friday.
Conover has experienced the impact of cost-cutting following media mergers firsthand. When AT&T purchased Time Warner in 2018, his TruTV program “Adam Ruins Everything” was terminated, eliminating jobs for employees, “countless” contractors and over 100 additional workers.
These job cuts mirror broader employment declines across the entertainment sector since reaching its highest point in late 2022.
California has faced particularly severe losses, eliminating 17,234 positions between 2019 and 2023, data from the Milken Institute shows. The organization determined that multiple factors — including declining television advertising revenue and slowing streaming service expansion — prompted studios to seek more affordable production locations for films and television series.
Hollywood sound stage utilization dropped to 62% during the first half of 2025, compared to near-complete occupancy in 2016, according to Film LA, the nonprofit group that coordinates filming activities throughout greater Los Angeles. The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, representing 170,000 behind-the-scenes workers, reported its members logged approximately 36% fewer working hours compared to 2022.
Matt Radecki, who co-founded the Different by Design post-production company in Los Angeles, worries a Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery combination will reduce purchasing options for documentary productions like the Academy Award-winning “Navalny,” created by two Warner divisions, HBO Max and CNN Films.
“This is the biggest thing that we’ve faced,” Radecki addressed attendees Saturday. “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.”
Former Federal Trade Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya expressed confidence that California Attorney General Rob Bonta could successfully challenge the merger. Bonta might contend that the Paramount Skydance-Warner transaction reduces competition among film studios, consequently impacting workers.
U.S. law also permits blocking mergers based on arguments they would reduce competition for particular categories of employment. Antitrust officials previously used this approach when stopping publisher Penguin Random House’s attempted acquisition of competitor Simon & Schuster in 2022.
California could reference that case as precedent for any labor-focused legal challenge, according to Ioana Marinescu, a University of Pennsylvania economist who authored the Biden administration Justice Department’s labor market guidelines.
“For some workers it could be that jobs at these two companies are really special, and this is really what they want,” she explained. “And there isn’t necessarily a very close substitute. And those are the people for whom it’s going to make an adverse impact.”
