The Federal Communications Commission may not approve the $8 billion merger between independent studio Skydance and Shari Redstone’s Paramount Global until possibly the second half of the year, On The Money has learned.
The commission gave an indication of the longer-than-expected timetable last week during a meeting with officials from the Center for American Rights, the conservative group that filed a complaint claiming the decaying media company’s left-leaning CBS News subsidiary violated the agency’s “public interest” rules, according to people at the sit-down.
The upshot of the meeting, the sources said, is that the FCC’s inquiry could grind on for months to determine what types of so-called remedies might be necessary to gain the agency’s blessing before it signs off on the deal.
“The commission indicated to us that they are in no rush to push this through and will fully investigate our claims,” Daniel Suhr, president of the Center for American Rights (CAR), told On The Money.
Last month, the FCC launched its inquiry into alleged deceptive editing of the controversial Kamala Harris “60 Minutes” interview — a probe that could throttle the Paramount-Skydance deal.
Agency officials have since been reviewing filings made by CAR and CBS News, and talking to people on both sides.
On The Money has also learned that the network has recently begun hiring outside lawyers in preparation for a long legal slog through the FCC deal-approval bureaucracy, another indication that the FCC edict could come later rather than sooner:
While it’s unclear exactly where the FCC is leaning on the case, during last week’s meeting, agency officials discussed with CAR possible remedies that could lead to approval of the deal, people at the meeting say.
Those remedies include forcing CBS to move operations out of the notorious progressive hubs of Los Angeles and New York – a tough ask considering these are the nation’s media centers. Another remedy would be to demand that the media company start seeking political diversity by recruiting from conservative universities such as Hillsdale College.
If CBS agrees to them, the FCC could greenlight the deal sooner, the people who were present told On The Money.
Reps for the FCC, Paramount and Skydance declined comment.
As previously reported, the FCC has set a late Match date for public comments on the matter. Now, barring some settlement between the parties, it looks Shari Redstone may have to cool her high heels for a lot longer before walking away with her huge payday from the sale of her once-powerful media empire.
The FCC deal snafu is something that neither Paramount nor Skydance saw coming after on-again, off-gain merger talks that lasted months before the daughter of legendary media mogul Sumner Redstone finally agreed last year to sell the sputtering conglomerate created by her dad.
Her decision came as cord-cutting and structural changes in the business began to eat into profit margins — and the family’s once enormous wealth. Redstone is slated to rake in nearly $2 billion once the deal is consummated.
Skydance is run by David Ellison, whose company produced hits such as “Top Gun: Maverick,” and his plan is to restructure Paramount’s programming and operations, which include a movie studio and brands such as CBS. And he has the money to make it work. His dad is Oracle founder Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men.
Larry Ellison is also a close friend of President Trump, but that hasn’t discouraged The Donald’s new FCC chair, Brendan Carr, from delaying the transaction over concerns that CBS News’ left-wing bias violates FCC public interest rules. In addition to pushing any approval into the second half of 2025, Carr’s inquiry will add significant legal costs to the deal, according to people in government and Wall Street with first-hand knowledge of the deliberations. Carr, On The Money has learned, may also demand that CBS scale back on DEI policies, which some say are illegal after a recent SCOTUS ruling.
FCC, Big Media’s top regulator, is one of the government entities charged with green-lighting mergers. Among its considerations in regulating airwaves used by broadcasters like CBS is that they follow public interest rules and refrain from distorting the news. FCC oversight doesn’t extend to cable broadcasters.
Last year, CAR filed two complaints with the FCC that sparked a wide-ranging investigation into the charges that CBS News’ “60 Minutes” edited an Oct. 7 interview with Harris, then the Democratic presidential candidate, to make her look better during the height of the 2024 campaign.
CBS News has come under fire from conservatives for years over allegedly left-wing bias in programming. Most recently, it took heat when one of its anchors, Margaret Brennan of “Face The Nation,” sparred with Secretary of State Marco Rubio over comments made by Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference. Vance criticized Germany’s current progressive government for censoring free speech of conservatives and Brennan suggested that free speech was a cause of the Holocaust.
But CBS’s (and by extension Skydance-Paramount’s) more pressing problem with the FCC stems from the “60 Minutes” interview, where Harris seemed unusually coherent in answering policy questions.. She is famous for her word-salad answers. In fact, CBS previously aired a promo of the Harris interview where her answer to a question about the Middle East appeared markedly less coherent than what ultimately aired.
President Trump, then the GOP presidential candidate, has also filed a lawsuit, alleging “60 Minutes” tried to improperly assist the Harris campaign. Trump demanded the release of a full transcript on top of monetary damages.
In early February, and under pressure from the FCC, Trump got half of what he wanted: CBS released the full, unedited transcript and video of the Harris sit-down with correspondent Bill Whitaker. CBS, which has denied it deceptively edited the piece, is said to be in early-stage negotiations to settle the $20 billion lawsuit.
Public reaction to the transcript largely broke down along ideological lines, though there was little doubt that “60 Minutes” did indeed edit Harris’ answers, at least to meet time restraints. Trump recently said the full transcript demonstrates that CBS was playing dirty with selective editing and “defrauded the public,” and that the news magazine “should be immediately terminated.”
A source close to the FCC chair tells On The Money that Carr “is in no rush to approve this thing because he believes CBS is relentlessly biased in its programming and it goes beyond the ’60 Minutes’ interview.”
Carr didn’t return a request for comment.
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