The headline items — rightfully so — in the consent decree between Paramount and 12 states are an increased commitment to production in the United States, an “editorial independence board” for CBS News and CNN and the fact that the combined company will still have to negotiate as two separate entities for cable carriage fees. Deeper into the document, though, is a carve-out for another piece of the Paramount empire: Pluto TV. The free, ad-supported streaming service has been something of an afterthought in the abundance of discussion and negotiations about the megamerger between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery. It’s the only free…
