As far as the Washington administration goes, they can throw the skydance deal into question and make a bad financial situation even worse. That alone would impact just about every original program they produce.
I was actually referencing the sky dance administration. You have two execs effectively with competing agendas—Wendy with streaming news, George with diversity programming. Both are trying to gain support from Ellison and Shell. George worked for Shell at nbc but his gambit is far riskier. Remember this is the same creative team that has not gotten over the cancellation of Generations, which failed to get a significant Audience in far less splintered times. Regardless of how high minded or noble an effort that Gates may or may be, if it falls short of expectations it’s a black eye for George.
If it should somehow work, I strongly suspect there will be a desire to double down. If it does not and the cost effeciency of repurposed streaming news brings them closer to whole, it will support further expansion since the content is already being produced anyway.
Both of these scenarios could make an outside acquisition like Deal a luxury many in charge won’t value as some might hope
