Studio M&A as Cultural‑Sovereignty Contest

Large, winner‑take‑all bids for legacy studios are not only financial transactions but contested vectors of cultural influence: which corporate owner (streamer, legacy studio, consortium) wins will shape distribution power, creator contracts, and editorial selection across film and TV for years. Boards rejecting leveraged bids on risk grounds can thus be making de‑facto cultural policy choices when they lock a studio to a particular platform. — Treating megadeals for studios as cultural‑sovereignty contests highlights why antitrust review, financing structure and ownership guarantees matter beyond short‑term investor returns—they determine who controls mass cultural narratives and creator markets.