As always, the important thing is we won't have to cancel HBO Max for at least another month.

Now I can stop lying about not having seen Throne of Blood. Status, which has been doing some really good work lately, was unusually generous with their recent newsletter on the Warner/Paramount deal. They convened a panel of antitrust experts and this time didn't leave the good stuff behind the paywall. Here are some excerpts, preceded by a few framing thoughts. I'm not sure how this could be seen as anything but a major setback for Paramount and, more importantly, the Ellisons, but there are so many unknowns and murky details that I'd be reluctant to make many definitive statements. We can say time is not on the Ellisons' side. As best I can tell, the consensus is that Paramount will need to pay at least one quarter's worth of ticking fees, which come in around $650 million every three months. Perhaps much more importantly, both Oracle and Larry Ellison appear to be in an extremely precarious financial position. Both are buried in debt. The company's bond rating is now one level…