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12:00 PM ET, December 9, 2025

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 Top News: 
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: after Netflix announced its WBD deal, Larry Ellison called Trump to argue it would hurt competition; Paramount CEO David Ellison promised CNN changes  —  David Ellison has launched a hostile takeover bid for Warner Discovery, taking his case directly to shareholders after Netflix clinched a deal
RELATED:
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Netflix changed movie distribution and its executives now think that licensing shows leaves money on the table; YouTube may help Netflix's WBD antitrust case  —  Netflix is driving the Hollywood end game, likely confident it can increase the value of IP, and fend off YouTube.
Financial Times:
Inside Paramount's new WBD bid: after six failed proposals across 12 weeks, and alleging WBD's board ignored a final offer, Paramount went hostile to buy WBD  —  Ellison's approach was rebuffed over concerns about financial backing from China and Middle East sovereign funds
Rohan Goswami / Semafor:
Sources: Paramount's Gulf sovereign funding, accounting for ~30% of the deal's value, and potential political scrutiny led WBD to reject Paramount's initial bid  —  The News  —  Paramount's reliance on Gulf sovereign money was a major reason why the company's bid for Warner Bros. Discovery failed …
Discussion: The Streamable, Reuters and TVNewsCheck
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Filing: Paramount's outside partners for its WBD bid include Saudi Arabia's PIF, Abu Dhabi's L'imad, Qatar Investment Authority, and Jared Kushner's Affinity
Cynthia Littleton / Variety:
Ted Sarandos says Paramount's “move was entirely expected”, but Netflix is “super confident” that it will get the WBD deal “across the line and finish”
Rohan Goswami / Semafor:
Paramount's WBD bid is backfiring in DC; a Trump official says Paramount seems to “believe the worst possible tropes” about corruption in the administration
Barbara Moens / Financial Times:
The European Commission opens an investigation into Google to assess possible anticompetitive conduct by Google in “the use of online content for AI purposes”  —  Investigation is the bloc's latest challenge to American Big Tech companies  —  Brussels has launched an investigation …
Ted Johnson / Deadline:
Matt Gutman is leaving ABC News to join CBS News as chief correspondent on January 5, reporting across the network as well as lead correspondent for 48 Hours  —  Gutman also will contribute to future seasons of 60 Minutes, and will serve as fill-in anchor.  He will start in Jan. 5 and will be based in Los Angeles.
RELATED:
Oliver Darcy / Status:
Sources: Tony Dokoupil is set to be the next CBS Evening News anchor beginning in the new year, despite an external search for a high-profile star
Ted Johnson / Deadline:
Trump attacks Paramount owners as “no better than the old ownership”, demanding an apology from 60 Minutes and Lesley Stahl for Marjorie Taylor Greene interview  —  Donald Trump said that the Ellison-owned Paramount is “no better than the old ownership,” as he lashed out at the company …
Deborah Mary Sophia / Reuters:
Wikimedia Foundation names Bernadette Meehan, who was the US Ambassador to Chile from 2022 to 2025, as its new CEO  —  Wikimedia Foundation, the operator of Wikipedia, on Tuesday named Bernadette Meehan its chief executive officer, tapping an administrator with deep policy expertise …
Discussion: Diff
Jaspreet Singh / Reuters:
Spotify rolls out music videos to Premium subscribers in the US and Canada, following a beta launch in nearly 100 markets last year  —  Spotify (SPOT.N) said on Tuesday it is making music videos available to premium subscribers in the U.S. and Canada, as the Swedish streaming giant challenges YouTube for market share.
Jesse Whittock / Deadline:
Steven Bartlett's FlightStory makes a “seven-figure” investment in Maggie Sellers Reum's Hot Smart Rich, whose podcast reached 1.8M+ downloads in its first year  —  Terms of the deal haven't been fully revealed and the size of the stake isn't known, but the cash will go towards scaling HSR …
Newley Purnell / Bloomberg:
Reddit rolls out new safety features globally for all users under 18, ahead of Australia's social media ban for under-16s that takes effect on December 10  —  Reddit Inc. is launching new safety features globally for all under-18s on its popular online forums ahead of Australia's groundbreaking social media ban.
 
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 More News: 
Mark Kennedy / Associated Press:
The Golden Globes' inaugural best podcast award nominations avoided controversy by passing on popular politics-related podcasts and personalities like Joe Rogan
Dade Hayes / Deadline:
MoffettNathanson: US pay-TV subscriptions grew by 303,000 in Q3 from Q2 2025, the first increase since 2017, and the overall rate of decline improved to 5.8%
Discussion: Axios
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Sources: ABC extended Jimmy Kimmel's deal until May 2027; the deal was reached months ago, but the announcement was delayed out of respect for Stephen Colbert
 Earlier Picks: 
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Letterboxd plans to launch its Video Store film rental platform on December 10, offering curated indie titles in 23 countries, including the US, UK, and France
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Sources: Anderson Cooper has signed a new deal with CNN
Lara O'Reilly / Business Insider:
Uber launches Uber Intelligence, an insights platform that lets advertisers tap into Uber's data about customer trips and deliveries
 

 
From Techmeme:

Kevin Breuninger / CNBC:
President Trump says the US will let Nvidia ship its H200 chips to “approved customers” in China and elsewhere, on the condition that the US gets a 25% cut

Julian Chokkattu / Wired:
Pebble unveils the Pebble Index 01, a $99 smart ring with an on-device LLM for processing voice notes, shipping in March 2026, initially for $75

Aaron Holmes / The Information:
Source: as soon as this week, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and others are set to unveil the Agentic AI Foundation to build open-source agent standards
 
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