The Government has threatened to intervene in Paramount's £83bn acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery over public interest concerns.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told Parliament on Tuesday she is “determined to intervene” in the deal, which will create one of the world's largest media and entertainment companies.
Paramount agreed to buy Warner Bros. Discovery in February after triumphing over Netflix in a long-running bidding battle.
Unlike Netflix, Paramount had bid to buy all of Warner Bros. operations, including networks like CNN and Discovery, as well as HBO Max, DC Studios and popular titles like Harry Potter.
It will add them to Paramount's CBS and combine two of the last five remaining studios in Hollywood.
Paramount's purchase of Warner's business will significantly reshape Hollywood and the broader media landscape.
Warner Bros. films such as Superman, Barbie and One Battle After Another, as well as hit television series such as The White Lotus and Succession, would join Paramount's extensive library, including the Mission: Impossible and Star Trek franchises.
In the UK, the merged group would control assets such as Channel 5 and TNT Sports.
Nandy said she has written to the current and proposed owners of Warner Bros Discovery to tell them she is “determined” to intervene in the public interest.
He said concerns relate to whether there is “sufficient plurality of opinion in the media”, plurality of ownership in the media and how the deal could affect services in the UK.
The minister is therefore likely to call on communications regulator Ofcom and competition watchdog the Competition and Markets Authority to further scrutinize the deal.
