The Federal Communications Commission paved the way for Paramount Global to complete its merger with Skydance Media, announcing Thursday that it approved the agreement. The decision removes a final obstacle for media and entertainment companies in order to conclude their transaction.
The approval of the FCC, which was necessary for the agreement to progress, breaks a long -standing business saga on the fate of Paramount, which owns Paramount +, the film and television studios of Paramount Pictures, the CBS Television Network and CBS News and Stations. Paramount also has Nickelodeon, Bet, MTV, Comedy Central and other media brands.
Overall agreed to merge With Skydance Media by David Ellison in July 2024 after having briefly stopped negotiations the previous month. The agreement followed a long turbulent sales process which aroused the interest of other major players and business investors, including the heir of Seagram Edgar Bronfman Jr., the media magnate Barry Diller,, Sony Pictures and the Apollo Global Management Apollo Management company, and All mediaThe company controlled by the former actor Byron Allen.
Paramount had said that he expected to close the merger of $ 8.4 billion in the first half of 2025. But the first semester came and came, and the merger remained during revision by the FCC and its president Brendan Carr, who had been appointed to the role earlier this year by President Trump.
Late on July 1, Paramount announced that he had set up a trial With Mr. Trump about the modification of an interview “60 minutes” with Kamala Harris, a prosecution who said that Paramount said that the court was baseless. The company agreed to pay $ 16 million – most of which would go to the Trump’s presidential library – and agreed to publish transcriptions of future interviews “60 minutes” with presidential candidates after these air interviews in the show. Mr. Trump has since said He expects the new owners of Paramount to offer him about 20 million dollars in advertising and PSA. Paramount said in a statement that he had no knowledge of the commitments to Trump outside of his $ 16 million settlement, and Skydance did not respond to requests for comments.
In two letters to the FCC earlier this week, Skydance is committed to hiring a mediator of CBS News to examine complaints from editorial biases for a period of at least two years, and the company confirmed that Paramount had eliminated or modified its Dei programs and its hiring practices earlier this year.