Trump administration regulators approved Skydance media Scholarship of $ 8 billion to acquire the parent company of CBS News ParamountOuning the way to a tectonic change in the property of one of the three main American networks.
The Federal Communications Commission said on Thursday that it had approved the acquisition, the president of the FCC, Brendan Carr, adding a press release that this decision would make a change to the media coverage of the company. Paramount has CBS, which includes CBS News.
“Americans no longer trust the national media inherited to report entirely, with precision and fairly. It is time to change,” Carr said in a press release. “This is why I salute Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes to the CBS diffusion network in the past.
“Today’s decision also marks another step forward in the FCC efforts to eliminate the prompts of DEI discrimination,” added Carr.
Skydance is managed by David Ellison, son of the founder of Oracle and Trump Ally Larry Ellison. While the youngest Ellison made a donation to President Joe Biden The re -election fund in February 2024 shortly before the former president withdrew from the race, President Donaldtrump recently reported his comfort with his takeover of Paramount and his assets, which, in addition to CBS news, also include Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, The CW, MTV, BET and Film Franchises like Smurfs and Sonic The Wedgehog.
“Ellison is great. He will do a great job with that,” said Trump in June.
There will probably be a maritime change in the editorial direction of CBS News under his new property. In a recent fileEllison and Skydance said they said to the Trump FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, that he was determined to continue a concentration on the “American narration” while praising a new “impartial” editorial direction for CBS News. Their meeting occurred shortly after Paramount agreed to pay $ 16 million to pay a prosecution brought by Trump, who accused the “60-minute” television program to modify an interview with an interview with the opponent of Trump’s electoral campaign in 2024, vice-president Kamala Harris.
He also came only a few days after CBS announced that he was canceling “The Late Show”, currently organized by Stephen Colbert – an announcement that Trump praised on social networks. Colbert had recently criticized the several million dollars regulations of the parent company with Trump, while CBS said that the cancellation was “purely a financial decision against a difficult backdrop at the end of the night”.
There had been signs of an editorial change before the merger. More specifically, the long -standing editor -in -chief of “60 minutes”, Bill Owens, announced that he had dismissed his functions this spring, citing the editorial independence of CBS News. Shortly after, the president and chief executive officer of CBS News Wendy McMahon was pushed. Last week, the New York Times reported Skydance was in the first talks to acquire the conservative-the free press media. Meanwhile, the host of “Daily Show” Jon Stewart said He did not know if his program would survive the merger.
Skydance has spent years continuing Paramount and finally realized that it could successfully execute the transaction by buying the parent of Paramount, National Amusements, the company once led by Sumner Redstone, the president, president and chief executive officer, Shari Redstone. However, the proposed agreement continued to face obstacles, first under the Biden administration, then at the start of Trump’s mandate. His approval came in the third period of delays.
