• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

A Paramount Skydance executive has floated the idea of possibly selling CNN in order to avert a long lawsuit process brought by 12 states to stop its deal in acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery.

At an industry event, Makan Delrahim, chief legal officer of Paramount Skydance, said the company was considering all options, including alluding to selling off CNN to make the lawsuit go away.

“Everything is on the table,” said Delrahim, during a Politico event. This came in response to a question: “If the price of getting this done were to dump CNN, would that be worth it?”

A Paramount representative did not respond to a Television News Daily inquiry by press time.

This comes after news reports that Paramount is strongly considering leaving its California headquarters and relocating to either Tennessee, Texas, or Georgia.

Another report from The Wall Street Journal suggests CNN would consider establishing an editorial board to instill future independence of its journalism.

The 12-state lawsuit concerns future restraint of business trade and media consolidation as well as fewer theatrical movies, rising pricing for consumers and massive job loss. The antitrust litigation trial is scheduled to start in March 2027.

Paramount-WBD would control 27% of the theatrical film distribution business in the U.S., according to estimates.

CNN has been projected to hit $1.8 billion in revenue and $600 million in operating profit (earnings before interest taxes, depreciation and amortization) for 2026, according to a regulatory filing by parent company Warner Bros. Discovery. Analysts estimate from those projections that CNN's net worth can be anywhere from $3.6 billion to $4.8 billion.

U.S. national TV advertising for the 12-month period ending August 2026 was estimated to be $312.7 million, according to iSpot.tv.

This story has been updated.