The FCC approves the Paramount-Skydance agreement

The FCC has granted the necessary approvals to open the way to the merger of $ 8 billion in Global Paramount and Skydance Media by David Ellison.

The agency has accepted the transfer of licenses for 28 local television stations belonging to CBS to the property group led by Skydance which takes up Paramount Global – by removing the last regulatory obstacle of the merger. FCC approval comes more than a year after the parties announced the agreement for the first time.

With the last obstacle deleted, the agreement should conclude in the coming weeks.

The commission voted 2-1 to approve the agreement, Commissioner Anna Gomez opposing it. Gomez, the only Democrat in the Commission, said that she was disturbed by the payment of Paramount to settle a prosecution brought by President Trump and other concessions.

“After months of loose capitulation to this administration, Paramount finally obtained what he wanted,” said Gomez. “Unfortunately, it is the American public who will finally finish the price of his actions.”

The approval of the FCC, led by the president named Trump, Brendan Carr, comes after Skydance joined the agency in the agency in two areas: ensuring the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) of the Skydance and Paramount programs have been closed; And appoint a mediator to examine “complaints of prejudice or other concerns” involving CBS in the context of “diversity from the point of view”. The best Skydance lawyer described the promises in two letters to Carr dated July 22.

“Americans no longer trust the national media inherited to report entirely, with precision and fairly. It is time to change,” Carr said in a statement. “This is why I salute Skydance’s commitment to make important changes to the CBS diffusion network formerly corrected.”

Paramount Global refused to comment. A Skydance representative did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

Carr was without excuse in the thrust of Trump’s agenda to eradicate Dei and repress alleged “media biases” by treating companies under the regulatory competence of the FCC. During the monthly meeting of the FCC Open earlier Thursday, Carr said that he was “satisfied” with the declared commitments of Skydance on the two fronts, saying: “They touch problems that I think we must see significant changes on.”

Meanwhile, the FCC approval comes after Paramount agreed to pay $ 16 million to President Trump to set up his trial against CBS on a “60 -minute” interview with Kamala Harris. Trump, who had demanded an absurd number of damages of $ 20 billion, allegedly alleged that Harris interview had been deceptive and constituted fraud and interference of consumers with the 2024 presidential election. Before setting up, Paramount and CBS decided to reject the pursuit of trump as “an affront in the first amendment”.

Trump, Paramount and Carr had each claimed that the FCC agreement approval process was distinct from the pursuit of “60 minutes”-despite the allegations of senator Elizabeth Warren and others according to which the regulations were a quid-re-quo to guarantee approval by the Trump administration of Paramount-Skydance.

Carr, in an interview of February 7 with Fox News, said that Trump “was right about these media biases” to discuss the examination by the FCC of the complaint of a conservative group that the interview with Harris “60 minutes” represented the “distortion of news”. He previously told Fox News that the complaint of “news distortion” would probably take into account the FCC on the revision of the Skydance-Paramount merger.

As part of the Paramount-Skydance agreement, announced on July 7, 2024, after months of talks in place, Larry Ellison (father of David Ellison), Skydance and Redbird Capital of Gerry Cardinale will buy the actions of the Global of Shari Redstone). At this stage, Skydance will merge with Paramount to become “Paramount Skydance Corp”. Although it is controlled by the Ellison family, Paramount Skydance will remain on the stock market.

The new company must be managed by the president and chief executive officer David Ellison, with Jeff Shell (former CEO of NBCUNIVERSAL) installed as president. Shari Redstone is expected to receive $ 1.75 billion in cash at the conclusion of the Skydance agreement, and it will leave the board of directors of the merged company.

As the agreement had been in the approval of the FCC awaiting limbo for months, Paramount has undertaken several layoff cycles, as three current CO -PDGs of the company – CBS head of CBS George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy, President and chief executive officer of Showtime / MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks, and – has aimed to reduce $ 500 million to annual costs.

The trio of CO-PDGs is eligible for compensation payments in the event of sale or merger. In the revised terms of their employment contracts, the cheeks, McCarthy and Robbins will receive initial payments equivalent to twice their annual basic salary, more twice their amount of annual target bonuses, among other advantages, in the event of termination within the framework of a sale or a merger of overall paramount (or in the two years following such a transaction). In addition, Paramount last fall added a provision to their employment agreements which will allow them to leave and receive these same departure services if they are demoted.

In the photo above (l. To r.): The president of the FCC, Brendan Carr; Paramount global flesh shari redstone; CEO of Skydance Media David Ellison