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The pending merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media was formally approved by the Trump administration on Thursday, concluding months of regulatory uncertainty.
FCC commissioners voted 2-1 along party lines to give the $8 billion deal a green light. The approval means that Skydance CEO David Ellison can complete the deal and take control of Paramount in the coming weeks.
The usually lengthy merger review process was pockmarked by allegations of political interference stemming from President Trump’s scathing criticism of Paramount’s CBS News division.
In recent days Paramount’s owners-in-waiting agreed to hire an ombudsman at CBS and pledged not to implement any new DEI policies.
Those commitments, as well as pledges relating to local content, were crucial for FCC chair Brendan Carr, who has reshaped the historically independent agency in Trump’s media-bashing image.
Carr, who once showcased his loyalty to Trump by wearing a gold lapel pin of the president’s head, has opened FCC probes into several outlets the president has criticized.
Once Carr received commitments in writing from Skydance, he moved to have his fellow commissioners vote on the merger.
“I welcome Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network,” Carr said in a statement. He cited the company’s assurances about having programming with “a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum,” something that CBS would surely say it already offers.
“Skydance will also adopt measures that can root out the bias that has undermined trust in the national news media,” Carr continued. “These commitments, if implemented, would enable CBS to operate in the public interest and focus on fair, unbiased, and fact-based coverage. Doing so would begin the process of earning back Americans’ trust.”
Carr’s stated emphasis on rebuilding trust in media is a stark break from past FCC leaders, and has been welcomed by conservative activists and derided by Democratic lawmakers in equal measure.
“The FCC’s approval of the Paramount-Skydance merger reeks of the worst form of corruption,” Democratic Sens. Ben Ray Luján and Ed Markey said in a joint statement Thursday evening.
The senators cited Trump’s assertion, made on Truth Social two days ago, that the current and future owners of Paramount had made “over $36 Million Dollars” in commitments to him.
One part is publicly known: On July 1, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million toward Trump’s future presidential library to resolve the president’s legally dubious lawsuit against CBS News.
The company and the FCC both insisted that the payout was unrelated to the merger review process, even as Democrats likened it to a “bribe” in exchange for approval.
Trump said the future owners of Paramount had also promised millions of dollars worth of public service announcements, which is how he arrived at the $36 million figure. The current owners said they were not involved in any negotiation about that, and the future owners have not commented.
The notion of a secret so-called “side deal” between Trump and Skydance led another Democratic senator, Elizabeth Warren, to say on Thursday that “this merger must be investigated for any criminal behavior.”
Commissioner Anna Gomez, who cast the sole dissenting vote, warned that “the Paramount payout and this reckless approval have emboldened those who believe the government can — and should — abuse its power to extract financial and ideological concessions, demand favored treatment, and secure positive media coverage.”
“It is a dark chapter in a long and growing record of abuse that threatens press freedom in this country,” Gomez added.
CBS News staffers have lamented the uncertainty caused by the pending merger, even as they have continued to report on the Trump administration day in and day out.
On Thursday, in a reassuring sign of stability for the flagship “60 Minutes” newsmagazine, veteran producer Tanya Simon was promoted to executive producer.
Other Paramount-owned programs have been in the news on a daily basis, highlighting the beleaguered company’s enduring power in the media marketplace.
Last week, CBS announced that its flagship late-night talk show, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” will end next May. The network said the cancellation was purely due to “financial” strains, not “other matters happening at Paramount,” referring to the pending merger.
Colbert has been making jokes about the network’s rationale on “The Late Show” ever since.
Jon Stewart, who hosts “The Daily Show” once a week on another Paramount-owned property, Comedy Central, lambasted the company on Monday and linked the cancellation to Trump’s pressure campaign against the media.
“Everyone,” he said, is wondering, “was this purely financial, or maybe the path of least resistance for your $8 billion merger?”
On Wednesday night Comedy Central’s “South Park” kept up the criticism of Paramount on its own channels. “South Park” viciously criticized Trump and alluded to his settlement with Paramount.
At one point in the episode, a character asked, “You really want to end up like Colbert? You guys got to stop being stupid. Just shut up, or we’re going to get canceled, you idiots!”
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