The ticking fee that makes Warner Bros. Discovery even more expensive for Paramount Skydance takes effect in two weeks.

That’s the key context for anything you read right now about the stalled merger.

Paramount has reason to apply maximum pressure between now and October 1, and it appears to be doing so, judging from this week’s headlines.

“Paramount is looking for Nashville office space as it weighs leaving LA,” Politico reported yesterday. “Paramount’s California future in doubt amid escalating legal fight,” Fox Business wrote.

But almost no one knows if Paramount CEO David Ellison’s pressure will push California AG Rob Bonta toward a settlement that would clear the way to a Paramount–WBD merger.

The pro-Paramount campaign is readily apparent. L.A. mayor Karen Bass — who is locked in a tough reelection campaign — spoke out last night and said “I’m going to fight like hell” to keep film production in the city.

It stands to reason that Bass is saying something even blunter to Bonta directly. Paramount surely welcomed her tweets.

As it stands right now, however, Bonta can simply repeat his position that the merger is unlawful and prepare for the trial in March. The Writers Guild of America’s lawsuit is still pending, too.

“Paramount seems to be playing a banker’s strategy and is in denial that Bonta has all the leverage right now,” a person close to the deal told me.

At the same time, that source and several other insiders said they expect the next two weeks — the final days before the ticking fee — will be key.

You might recall that Puck’s Matt Belloni reported back in August that Ellison told his leadership team that he’d “set an October 1 deadline to resolve the matter.”

This morning the NYPost’s Charlie Gasparino, who frequently cites info from Paramount insiders, called it a “settle-or-leave deadline.”

There are some indications that backchannel talks are underway, though neither side will confirm or deny.

TMZ got tongues wagging yesterday with an article labeled “exclusive” that said, “Paramount to leave California, according to the L.A. Mayor’s office and the California Attorney General’s office.”

Well, that attribution was definitely off, but it suggests the news outlet’s sourcing came from the government side, not the Paramount side.

TMZ updated its article to say “the mayor and the A.G. were told the announcement would come yesterday, but it did not happen. We do not know if circumstances changed or if there was just a delay.”

Bonta’s office responded by saying, “It’s no secret that Paramount has been making this threat, despite its alleged commitment to California and Hollywood.”

“What Paramount decides to do is Paramount’s choice alone,” the spokesperson added. “We’ll continue to apply the law without fear or favor and continue to be open to coming to the table for good faith discussions.”

A Paramount rep declined to comment.

“Thousands of jobs will be lost if Paramount’s corporate headquarters were to shift to Georgia, Tennessee or Texas, three sites reportedly floated by the company,” Deadline’s Dominic Patten wrote. “Even without a move, a merged company would likely see layoffs as it looks to deliver shareholders $6 billion in promised cost savings.”

The California AG will be at The Atlantic Festival in NYC for a session moderated by Quinta Jurecic this afternoon. Two other state AGs, John Formella of New Hampshire and David Sunday of Pennsylvania, will also be on stage to discuss “recent antitrust litigation, lawsuits against big tech, and being a defender of the rule of law.” Those other two states aren’t part of the Paramount lawsuit, so it’ll be interesting to see if the case comes up…

THR’s Steven Zeitchik hears that Comcast’s Universal Pictures, which has the worldwide rights to Alex Gibney’s Elon Musk documentary outside of North America, “appears to be having second thoughts on a documentary it paid a significant sum to acquire.”

Two sources told Zeitchik that “while a final decision has not been made… they believed that Universal would ultimately decide against releasing the film and return rights to the movie to filmmakers.”

Universal hasn’t commented, but if it “opts against releasing the movie, it would mark an extraordinary reversal at a moment when media companies are already under scrutiny for bowing to various forms of political pressure,” he wrote last night.

Notably, “Universal would be required to pay filmmakers a kill fee not to release the movie, according to a person familiar with the deal’s structure. The filmmakers would then be free to sell it anew, essentially allowing it to profit twice off the same rights sale.”

The New York Times published its first edition on September 18, 1851. And it’s doing a lot to mark the 175th anniversary.

This morning Times Co. senior leadership rang the opening bell at the NYSE. And the company is holding a glitzy 175th celebration in NYC tonight.

Plus, The Times is out with a new video, meant to be shared all across social media, called “Reporters follow the facts.”

“From this week through mid-December, dozens of writers will contribute nearly 50 stories exploring The Times’s triumphs and shortcomings,” Sarah Bahr writes here. “A special issue of The New York Times Magazine is planned, as is a commemorative section of the paper.”

“60 Minutes” is teasing a big exclusive interview for this Sunday’s episode: Patrick Clancy, the Massachusetts father whose then-wife, Lindsay Clancy, killed their three children in 2023.

Throughout Lindsay’s televised trial, which ended in a mistrial, Patrick became the target of baseless conspiracy theories and lurid speculation about his personal life. Ross Douthat conducted the interview, making this his first extended interview for the newsmagazine…

The impact of the NewsChopper4 crash in Chatsworth “has rippled through the airborne media community in Los Angeles like a shock wave,” the NYT’s L.A. bureau chief Shawn Hubler wrote on Page One of today’s paper. He quoted a chopper reporter for the city’s CBS affiliate saying it was “the day we all dread.”

Meantime, this story on Page One of today’s L.A. Times notes that the video recording of the chopper’s final moments “holds clues” about what went wrong…

PEN America, which has been through the wringer lately, named another new president this morning: “Award-winning novelist, essayist, and professor” Phil Klay. Here’s the press release. Klay wrote on X, “I’m honored to serve as the President of PEN/America, which has been defending free expression a