Why The Paramount Deal Might Not Hurt Bonta

LOS ANGELES — Progressive antitrust advocates hammered Rob Bonta for settling the fight over Paramount Skydance’s purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery. But the California attorney general may not pay a heavy price for it with voters.

While more registered voters in California said the settlement was bad for the state than good — 24% to 16% — 43% weren’t sure and another 16% said it was neither good nor bad, according to a new Citrin-POLITICO poll.

The survey, conducted in mid-October, just weeks after the settlement was announced, is one of the first gauges of public opinion surrounding a deal that roiled Hollywood and could have a profound effect on the way consumers watch films and TV shows, and get their news.

For voters, however, it may be landing as “inside baseball,” said Jack Citrin, a University of California, Berkeley, political science professor and co-director of the UC Berkeley Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research-POLITICO poll.

In settling the antitrust litigation that sought to block the $111 billion merger, Paramount agreedin a consent decree to increase spending on domestic film production by at least $300 million annually, produce 30 movies in each of the first two years of the deal — with more required in subsequent years — and establish an independent board of journalists to monitor the editorial independence of CNN and CBS News, both of which are now owned by the new media conglomerate. Critics panned the deal because it allowed Paramount to complete the merger without divesting any assets, and noted the members of the editorial-independence board for CNN and CBS News would be appointed by the combined company’s board of directors.

Bonta is, in voters’ eyes, the person most associated with the Paramount settlement — for better or worse. Among those rating it very or somewhat good, 29% of people said the attorney general most deserved credit for the deal. Gov. Gavin Newsom — who had urged the parties to settle the matter — and Paramount were each named as the party most deserving of credit by 18% of voters.

Conversely, among those rating the Paramount settlement somewhat or very bad, 27% of voters said Bonta deserved the most blame, followed by 22% for Newsom and 20% for Paramount.

Unlike in earlier polling on the merger — before the agreement was reached — the partisan divide over the settlement was less pronounced. In September, support for Bonta’s litigation had been a sharply partisan issue: 61% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents backed it, compared to 32% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.

Post-settlement, however, 19% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the settlement was good for California, compared to 14% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Meanwhile, 27% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the settlement was bad for California, compared to 24% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.

“It says that when it was a political issue, people responded politically, and now that it's not fodder for partisan debate, people kind of tagged out,” said Jon Cohen, founder and CEO of TrueDot, whose firm fielded the poll. “It was easy to provoke partisan sentiment when partisans were arguing about it.”

There was, however, additional blame — and credit — for Bonta in a concurrent survey of POLITICO’s audience of key political and policy influencers in the state, including political staffers, lobbyists, policy advisers and others deeply versed in California’s political landscape. The poll showed that among the influentials rating the Paramount settlement very or somewhat good, 58% said Bonta most deserved credit for the deal. Among those rating the Paramount settlement somewhat or very bad, 43% said the attorney general deserved the most blame for it.

These data come from parallel surveys of California voters and policy influencers, fielded by TrueDot, the AI-accelerated research platform, in collaboration with the Citrin Center at UC Berkeley and POLITICO. Interviews for the voter survey were conducted online in English and Spanish from Oct. 9-14, among a sample of 1,149 registered voters, including 909 likely voters, selected at random through Verasight, with supplemental online panel recruitment. Voter results were weighted to California registered-voter benchmarks for age, educational attainment, race and ethnicity, gender, and geography, with additional calibration to 2024 presidential vote by region.

From Oct. 14-16, a parallel study was conducted in partnership with POLITICO among its audience of key political and policy influencers in California. The audience was defined based on job title and organizational affiliation and included state and local government employees, political staffers, lobbyists, policy advisers, consultants, business decision-makers and subject matter experts.

The margin of error is plus or minus 3.2% for the registered voter sample and plus or minus 3.6% for likely voters. The influencer survey has no calculable error margin.