• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 10 hours ago

“CNN should be sold, because I think the people that are running CNN right now are either corrupt or incompetent," said Trump earlier this week to reporters. He did not offer any evidence to back this statement.

This assumes that CNN would also not be spun off under any WBD plan -- which currently is to be included as part of Discovery Global, a new public company, controlled by WBD.

Now, under the proposed Netflix deal for WBD -- valued at $83 billion -- this would seem to give the big premium streamers a strong position in the eyes of the Trump Administration. That’s because Netflix isn’t interested in WBD’s cable TV networks, including CNN. The Netflix deal is only interested in WBD’s studio and streaming operations.

At the same time, Paramount Skydance might also feel Trump’s opinion works in its favor. Its $108 billion deal includes cable TV network operations and CNN.

Paramount’s CEO David Ellison and his father Larry Ellison, founder/executive chairman of Oracle Corp., are close friends of Trump.

In the past, any publicly traded company executives would be shocked that this kind of connection with any current White House administration would matter at all -- that it should primarily be focused purely on antitrust/monopolist marketplace issues.

But Trump himself just doesn’t like CNN’s news and/or opinionated content -- and wants it changed. In principle, this would violate freedom of speech and freedom of the press rules.

But opinions coming from all directions could change. The positive is that Netflix can be in it for the long term -- as it has more financial wherewithal than Paramount, for example -- leaving out mideast countries-based sovereign fund backers. For example, one measure comes from stock market capitalization from each company: Netflix is at $400 billion; Paramount, $15 billion.

Analysts believe when it comes to the current streaming media marketplace, Paramount would “need for this deal is clearly more dire,” says Laurent Yoon, media analyst for Bernstein Research.

This comes from research that even adding WBD’s key HBO Max streamer still puts Paramount-WBD overall viewing from all its platforms behind YouTube, Walt Disney, and Netflix.

Still focusing on Netflix, being the undisputed leader as a single premium streaming service would be eyed closely by federal regulators.

Should Netflix then alter its WBD -- to perhaps just include CNN and up its cash for WBD’s stock? Would that change things more for its side?

Some people's opinions on things matter now more than others.