On September 10, Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was assassinated during a campus event at the University of Utah. The killing, carried out by Tyler Robinson who now faces the death penalty, has sent shockwaves through American politics and media.
The impact will no doubt be wide-ranging, and early signs are already emerging of the effect that Kirk’s assassination will have.
Conservative speaker Ben Shapiro has vowed to ramp up his appearances at college campuses across America, but only under heightened security and not at outdoor events.
“I’m sure that I am not the only one this year, because if what Charlie died for means anything, it means that we have to keep actually going into these spaces and having these debates,” he said.
“But it’s going to change the nature of security just the same as when it came to airports. 9/11 changed the nature of security.”
Beyond increased security, Kirk’s death comes at a time when global media is undergoing massive consolidation. Whilst many have pointed to talk show host Jimmy Kimmel’s sudden suspension after a monologue about Kirk as an attack on free speech, it is better viewed as a commercial response within an industry experiencing disruption and changing ownership.
That disruption began when Elon Musk acquired Twitter for US$44 billion in 2022 and vowed to make it a bastion of free speech. Twitter has since been rebranded as X and folded into his AI company, xAI. What began as a chaotic social network is now at the core of Musk’s broader project to merge AI with communication, creating an “everything app” that will eventually integrate social media and messaging with news, financial services, shopping and other digital tasks.
However, the biggest moves in media are currently not being driven by Musk but by his close friend and Oracle founder, Larry Ellison, who briefly surpassed Musk as the world’s richest man last week.
Ellison is a minority investor in X but his media ambitions are far greater.
He has recently backed the merger of production company Skydance, owned by his son David, with the media giant Paramount, owner of CBS News.
Before the merger could be completed, Paramount needed to first navigate a contentious US$16 million settlement with President Trump in July this year, resolving his lawsuit alleging deceptive editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Presidential hopeful, Kamala Harris. It was a move widely criticised as a tacit payment to secure regulatory approval for its impending merger with Skydance.
The Federal Communications Commission, under Chairman Brendan Carr, approved the US$8.4 billion merger transaction on July 24, with Skydance pledging to abandon diversity initiatives and to appoint an ombudsman to monitor CBS News for bias.
Amid the ensuing executive shake-up, CBS cancelled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert with effect from May 2026. It was a decision announced shortly after Colbert lambasted the Trump settlement as a “big fat bribe” on air, fuelling speculation that the axing served to appease the administration and align with Skydance’s conservative-leaning ownership ties to the Ellison family.
CBS is now actively reshaping its editorial stance. Kenneth Weinstein, a conservative think tank veteran and former Trump nominee as ambassador to Japan, has been appointed to a new role of ombudsman with a sweeping mandate to evaluate bias, transparency, and editorial judgment across CBS News. Critics have noted that Weinstein has no prior experience producing or overseeing news coverage.
Meanwhile, CBS is also close to finalising a deal to acquire The Free Press, Bari Weiss’s independent media venture hosted on Substack for an amount understood to be in the range of US$100 million to US$200 million. Should the deal close, Weiss is expected to take on a senior editorial role at CBS, tasked with, “guiding the editorial direction of the [CBS news] division.” Weiss has been outspoken on her anti-woke views.
The Guardian reported that CBS journalists are “apoplectic” at the news of her impending role, with some concerned about a “hall monitor” approach to news coverage.
In addition to the Paramount merger, Ellison is currently involved in several other large media deals.
This week a deal is expected to be announced regarding TikTok’s US business. Ellison’s Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz are expect to be amongst investors who take control of the US operations under a new 80/20 deal with current owner ByteDance. Oracle will host the servers and there will be a new US-only app with a separate algorithm.
Beyond Paramount and Tiktok, Ellison is also preparing a potential bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, the owner of CNN and HBO. If successful, Ellison’s media holdings will surpass US$60 billion in equity value and approach US$95 billion in enterprise scale, eclipsing the aging media baron Rupert Murdoch outright.
Murdoch himself has only just agreed to a succession plan for his US$40 billion empire, now formally in the hands of his son Lachlan after a September family settlement.
Ellison is in effect merging news, entertainment and AI. The impact is hard to fathom at the moment but in terms of immediate effect, we can expect streaming businesses to undergo long overdue consolidation, and news to experience editorial realignment.
Lawyer and writer Philip Crump explores political, legal and cultural issues facing New Zealand. Sometimes known as Thomas Cranmer. This article was published HERE
“I’m sure that I am not the only one this year, because if what Charlie died for means anything, it means that we have to keep actually going into these spaces and having these debates,” he said.
“But it’s going to change the nature of security just the same as when it came to airports. 9/11 changed the nature of security.”
Beyond increased security, Kirk’s death comes at a time when global media is undergoing massive consolidation. Whilst many have pointed to talk show host Jimmy Kimmel’s sudden suspension after a monologue about Kirk as an attack on free speech, it is better viewed as a commercial response within an industry experiencing disruption and changing ownership.
That disruption began when Elon Musk acquired Twitter for US$44 billion in 2022 and vowed to make it a bastion of free speech. Twitter has since been rebranded as X and folded into his AI company, xAI. What began as a chaotic social network is now at the core of Musk’s broader project to merge AI with communication, creating an “everything app” that will eventually integrate social media and messaging with news, financial services, shopping and other digital tasks.
However, the biggest moves in media are currently not being driven by Musk but by his close friend and Oracle founder, Larry Ellison, who briefly surpassed Musk as the world’s richest man last week.
Ellison is a minority investor in X but his media ambitions are far greater.
He has recently backed the merger of production company Skydance, owned by his son David, with the media giant Paramount, owner of CBS News.
Before the merger could be completed, Paramount needed to first navigate a contentious US$16 million settlement with President Trump in July this year, resolving his lawsuit alleging deceptive editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Presidential hopeful, Kamala Harris. It was a move widely criticised as a tacit payment to secure regulatory approval for its impending merger with Skydance.
The Federal Communications Commission, under Chairman Brendan Carr, approved the US$8.4 billion merger transaction on July 24, with Skydance pledging to abandon diversity initiatives and to appoint an ombudsman to monitor CBS News for bias.
Amid the ensuing executive shake-up, CBS cancelled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert with effect from May 2026. It was a decision announced shortly after Colbert lambasted the Trump settlement as a “big fat bribe” on air, fuelling speculation that the axing served to appease the administration and align with Skydance’s conservative-leaning ownership ties to the Ellison family.
CBS is now actively reshaping its editorial stance. Kenneth Weinstein, a conservative think tank veteran and former Trump nominee as ambassador to Japan, has been appointed to a new role of ombudsman with a sweeping mandate to evaluate bias, transparency, and editorial judgment across CBS News. Critics have noted that Weinstein has no prior experience producing or overseeing news coverage.
Meanwhile, CBS is also close to finalising a deal to acquire The Free Press, Bari Weiss’s independent media venture hosted on Substack for an amount understood to be in the range of US$100 million to US$200 million. Should the deal close, Weiss is expected to take on a senior editorial role at CBS, tasked with, “guiding the editorial direction of the [CBS news] division.” Weiss has been outspoken on her anti-woke views.
The Guardian reported that CBS journalists are “apoplectic” at the news of her impending role, with some concerned about a “hall monitor” approach to news coverage.
In addition to the Paramount merger, Ellison is currently involved in several other large media deals.
This week a deal is expected to be announced regarding TikTok’s US business. Ellison’s Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz are expect to be amongst investors who take control of the US operations under a new 80/20 deal with current owner ByteDance. Oracle will host the servers and there will be a new US-only app with a separate algorithm.
Beyond Paramount and Tiktok, Ellison is also preparing a potential bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, the owner of CNN and HBO. If successful, Ellison’s media holdings will surpass US$60 billion in equity value and approach US$95 billion in enterprise scale, eclipsing the aging media baron Rupert Murdoch outright.
Murdoch himself has only just agreed to a succession plan for his US$40 billion empire, now formally in the hands of his son Lachlan after a September family settlement.
Ellison is in effect merging news, entertainment and AI. The impact is hard to fathom at the moment but in terms of immediate effect, we can expect streaming businesses to undergo long overdue consolidation, and news to experience editorial realignment.
Lawyer and writer Philip Crump explores political, legal and cultural issues facing New Zealand. Sometimes known as Thomas Cranmer. This article was published HERE
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