Paramount Global and Skydance Media punched back at critics of their pending merger, saying that they fail to show they’ll be harmed by the deal and instead their demands threaten free speech rights in a regulatory filing Thursday.
Since the $8 billion deal was announced in July, naysayers have pointed to potential liberal bias, foreign influence and lack of diversity, among other concerns.
“These filings are procedurally defective, seek relief that raises constitutional concerns, and/or otherwise lack merit,” Skydance, Paramount and its controlling investor, National Amusements Inc., said in the filing. “Neither party identifies any transaction-related harm that could merit denying the applications or imposing conditions.”
Most recently, the merger of Paramount, home to CBS, MTV and Paramount+, with independent film producer Skydance, has drawn criticism at the Federal Communications Commission by LiveVideo.AI Corp., the Center for American Rights and Fuse Media.
The FCC must approve deals involving the sale of broadcast TV stations.
Incoming FCC boss Brendan Carr, who will take up the mantle when President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office on Jan 20., has already expressed concerns over the national broadcast media’s role in eroding “public trust” in the news.
In their filing, Paramount and Skydance said measures proposed by the Center for American Rights may be unconstitutional.
The center, a nonprofit that has filed complaints about media bias at other networks, said in a public filing that the deal should only be approved under the condition that Paramount will avoid foreign influence and promote diversity on its airwaves.
The group noted that China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd. is an investor in Skydance.
“The center’s request that the commission force ‘New Paramount to commit to viewpoint diversity, with real benchmarks and expectations,’ would be anathema to the First Amendment, because it would put the government in the untenable position of supervising a broadcaster’s editorial policies and choices,” Skydance said in its filing.
Skydance said Tencent will hold only a minority stake in nonvoting Paramount shares after the merger.
Last month, Fuse, a Latino-owned media company, also accused Paramount of favoring its own programming on its Pluto streaming service, which Paramount disputed.
LiveVideo said Paramount and parent-company National Amusements ran a rigged auction of the business.
The companies responded Thursday that LiveVideo provided “no factual support for its claims,” and asked the commission to approve their merger promptly and without conditions.
As reported by The Post’s Charles Gasparino, sources close to the megadeal, said that Carr could make a slew of dramatic changes to the deal before greenlighting it.
One such change is that CBS could be required to fully abide by standards set for US broadcast licensees to be “neutral” news organizations.
According to people close to Trump’s transition team, CBS could, among other things, be forced to turn over a full transcript of the controversial “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris, which those in the Trump orbit believe shows the network played dirty during the 2024 election.
It may also include broader demands, such as Skydance — a Hollywood movie studio best known for producing the recent installments of “Mission: Impossible” — to be asked to demonstrate to Team Trump that CBS will become a fair arbiter of news, among other things, The Post reported.
Meanwhile, Paramount Global boss Shari Redstone is banking on her friendly relationship with Trump to help the media giant skirt any FCC issues in its merger with Skydance, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal last week.
The media mogul is also hoping that Trump’s longstanding relationship with Larry Ellison — the billionaire co-founder of Oracle and father of Skydance CEO David Ellison — will help pave the way for the $8 billion deal.
Reps for Redstone and the Ellisons declined to comment at the time.
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