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With the DOJ and FCC reduced to feckless rubber stamps, can California’s Rob Bonta lead a significant state regulatory challenge to Live Nation, Nexstar and Paramount?

Former top state attorneys general say California and New York have the legal talent and resources ‘to put up a real fight’

On March 9, shares of Live Nation Entertainment rose nearly 7% after the Department of Justice largely let the ticket-seller off the hook for major antirust accusations. By Friday, shares fell back, trading slightly lower than where they started the week, with Wall Street concerned about an effort by 32 state attorneys general to keep fighting Ticketmaster’s parent company.

Meanwhile, even though President Trump is widely known to favor David Ellison’s $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, Wolfe Research analyst Peter Supino warned Paramount Skydance investors to watch out for the deal’s $7 billion breakup fee. “Recent reports on the California Attorney General’s concern over the merger suggests the risks are real,” Supino wrote.

With the DOJ and FCC widely viewed as rubber stamps for the Trump administration’s rampant cronyism and corruption, Politico just billed California AG Rob Bonta as “the last line of defense” against mega deals like Paramount/WBD. And with the FCC just letting Nexstar blow way past the 39% station-ownership cap while green-lighting its purchase of rival broadcast group Tegna, The American Prospect described Bonta as the leader of a state movement serving as a “substitute for corrupt feds on antitrust.”

“The federal administration appears to be retreating from its traditional role and its duty to do this work. … So we have a central role here,” Bonta told Politico.