The $110bn Paramount Skydance acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) entered a US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) review of its foreign ownership, days after the Department of Justice granted antitrust clearance on 12 June.1 The combined company would carry a 49.5% total foreign stake, 38.5% of it held by Gulf sovereign funds: Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund at 15.1%, the UAE at 12.8% and Qatar's sovereign fund at 10.6%.
No single fund crosses the 25% foreign-ownership ceiling that US broadcast licences carry, but the three Gulf stakes together clear it as one bloc. Paramount has asked the FCC to authorise foreign equity of up to 100%, four times that ceiling.2 Democratic senators wrote to FCC chair Brendan Carr urging a rigorous review and asking that the deal not close before it ends. Paramount has committed to closing by 30 September, past which a ticking fee begins, a penalty of several million dollars for each day the deal runs late.
The asset under review is the same WBD now rebuilding its advertising on agentic AI, so whoever ends up owning it inherits that infrastructure. Paramount Skydance has spent the year buying editorial assets through the transition, including its acquisition of The Free Press. Ownership rules written for an earlier era of broadcast licences now gate a streaming-and-AI merger, with a politically split commission to run it through.
