Donald Trump's second term in the White House might lead to a festival of M&A (mergers and acquisitions) in Hollywood, as described in an explosive report from Variety that included quotes and forecasts from Mergermarket's Lucinda Guthrie.
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After successfully becoming President of the United States once again, Trump is expected to do the one thing that he's touted the most throughout his 2024 presidential run: "fire as many as 50,000 career federal employees and replace them with people who have unquestionable loyalty to the president," as reported by The Advocate.
This generalized restaffing of the U.S. government includes replacing the head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) — which enforces antitrust laws to authorize or prohibit the merging of companies — and the chief of the Justice Department's antitrust division.
While the Biden administration got tougher on media and tech companies interested in merging or acquiring one another (via Variety), UBS' Mark Haefele explained that the market very much anticipates "increased M&A activity" when Trump returns to office.
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Media conglomerates like Comcast, Walt Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, Sony, Amazon, Fox, and Netflix currently control most of the mainstream content consumed by U.S. viewers. However, that already low number of players could decrease even further during this second term of Trump in the White House.
Unfortunately, history shows that the merging and/or acquiring of media companies typically leads not only to huge layoffs in Hollywood, but also to an even less varied lineup of content being produced by big studios and streaming services.
In 2022, for instance, Warner Bros Discovery (a new merger between Warner Bros and Discovery) enacted "cost-cutting" practices that not only canceled many existing and upcoming LGBTQ+ projects like Batgirl, Legendary, and Generation, but also erased them from the Max (then called HBO Max) streaming catalog.
With experts forecasting that Trump is planning to take a pro-M&A approach during this second term, one can expect all kinds of different combinations for new media conglomerates in the Hollywood landscape — which usually comes at the cost of taking fewer risks, including fewer voices, and betting solely on tentpole intellectual property (IP) that is guaranteed to bring back financial returns.
Besides, y'know, everything else, there is now clear reason for Hollywood creatives to be worried about working on projects that cater to niche audiences and/or tell specific stories. This also means that certain guarantees secured during the SAG-AFTRA strike of 2023 could also be at risk of simply going away due to the formation of new companies in charge of content production and distribution.
Fasten your seatbelts, queer Hollywood! This is about to be a bumpy ride.
