With CNN in their sights, the Ellisons ask Trump who to axe

Leading the rightwing media consolidation craze, Larry and David Ellison are taking their orders from the White House and Donald Trump himself. With CBS already bleeding out and TikTok in their sights, they’re now pondering a CNN makeover.

The Ellisons have since set their sights on Warner Brothers, CNN, and HBO. It won’t be cheap; it’s estimated that Larry and company will have to pay upwards of $60 billion for the acquisition. The Trump administration has openly signaled that they’d very much like the Ellisons to succeed here, in part to force a dying cable news channel (CNN) to be even friendlier to Trump than it already is.

While Ellison has some competing suitors with names like Comcast NBC Universal and Netflix, the winning bidder will need approval from the Trump DOJ and FCC. Knowing that they likely have a distinct tactical advantage via corruption, Ellison and Trump appear to be already measuring the drapes, discussing programming changes (and CNN hirings and firings) that will please the president:

“Ellison often speaks to connections at the White House and in at least one phone call engaged in a dialogue about possibly axing some of the CNN hosts whom Donald Trump is said to loathe, including Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar, the people said.”

You might recall that during the first Trump administration, Trump tried very hard to offload Time Warner (and CNN) to Rupert Murdoch, who worked behind the scenes to scuttle the AT&T Time Warner deal. Trump has repeatedly filed unsuccessful lawsuits against CNN trying to silence critical voices at the network. With those gambits having failed, buying and destroying CNN from the inside is the next step.

TechDirt

Behind the scenes, they’re talking programming cuts, talent purges, and turn‑key propaganda (or as they call it: “content alignment”). Trump appears eager, with the DOJ and FCC nodding from the sidelines. Because when you own the mic “alternate facts” become “The Most Trusted Name in News.”