Skydance executives are open to the creation of an internal ombudsman for CBS News to assuage Trump administration concerns over bias and most of all, to gain approval for its merger with Shari Redstone’s fading media empire Paramount Global, On The Money has learned.
The ombudsman concept — essentially a layer of management ensuring that news content remains free of political bias — might appease Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr, who is throttling the deal over concerns of left-wing partisanship at one of the nation’s top TV networks despite its vows of objectivity, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Carr is weighing his own set of remedies that the parties must agree on to gain his blessing that also include some sort of oversight mechanism at CBS News, these people say.
A source close to Skydance tells On The Money that the ombudsman idea is something that Jeff Shell, the former NBC chief who is slated to run the merged company’s news operations, “would consider and likes.”
A source close to Carr tells On The Money that the FCC chair has “some ideas in mind” for remedies that might end the stalemate. The ombudsman idea, this person said, “echoes” what he’s thinking.
An FCC spokesman had no comment. A Skydance rep also declined comment.
The FCC – the primary regulator over the broadcast media business – is a key player in the merger between the independent film company and Paramount. Under federal law, the agency can deny local broadcast licenses to companies and derail mergers when there is evidence that news content violates its so-called “public interest rules.”
Those rules prohibit broadcasting of news over public airwaves (as opposed to cable) that contains obvious political bias. CBS News, a unit of Paramount, has come under fire from conservatives for years over an allegedly left-wing slant in its programming.
Last month, the FCC delayed approval of the $8 billion deal when it launched a bias inquiry into the network. The investigation followed a complaint made by a conservative legal outfit that CBS deceptively edited the controversial Kamala Harris “60 Minutes” interview during the height of the 2024 presidential campaign.
On The Money has previously reported that barring an acceptable remedy solution, Carr’s investigation could delay his decision on the merger for months and possibly until the second half of the year. The players – including David Ellison, the Skydance chief, and Redstone, the increasingly cash-poor heir to her father Sumner Redstone’s troubled media empire – wanted to get the deal closed by the first quarter of 2025.
Redstone is expected to earn $1.8 billion when the combo is inked. It’s a much-needed financial lifeline to preserve family wealth that has been dissipating as Paramount’s stock has tumbled due to vast structural changes in the media business, including cord cutting.
Ellison is the son of the multi-billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, a close friend of President Trump. The elder Ellison is behind some of the financing for the transaction that would fulfill his son’s ambitions to emerge as a major player in the media business, tapping into Paramount programming like CBS and the Paramount movie studio and streamlining operations to meet the increasingly difficult operating conditions of the broadcasting business.
Despite the elder Ellison’s friendship with Trump, such ambitions will have to wait until the FCC and Carr are satisfied that the new company will be different from the old one in terms of the alleged political bias in its straight news programming.
The “60 Minutes”-Harris interview has been steeped in controversy since its airing last Oct. 7. The then-VP and Democrat president nominee — known for her word salad answers when pressed on various public policy issues – gave unusually coherent answers under questioning by correspondent Bill Whitaker.
Conservative groups including the Center For American Rights, or CAR, soon discovered that CBS previously had aired a promo of the Harris interview where her answer to a question about the Middle East appeared markedly less coherent.
As reported, CAR filed a complaint with the FCC that triggered the investigation and ultimately throttled the Skydance-Paramount deal. A recently released transcript of the interview shows that CBS did in fact edit the piece down, though the network has said it did so to meet time constraints.
Carr isn’t impressed with CBS’ denials, and neither is President Trump, sources close to them tell On The Money. Trump, when he was the GOP presidential candidate, filed a $20 billion lawsuit, alleging “60 Minutes” tried to improperly assist the Harris campaign. Trump demanded the release of a full transcript on top of monetary damages. The two sides are said to be conducting settlement negotiations, though it’s unclear how close they are to reaching a deal.
ABC recently agreed to pay Trump $15 million to settlement a defamation suit over comments made by correspondent George Stephanopoulos, who said on air that Trump was “found liable for rape” of writer E. Jean Carroll, statements which were false. The settlement money was donated to the Trump presidential library.
Even with the Trump case looming, Carr’s inquiry remains the biggest sticking point in the Skydance-Paramount deal. People close to the FCC investigation say there are no major discussions on a settlement just yet.
The FCC staff, as reported by On The Money, met with CAR last week to get its views on possible remedies. They included moving some of the new company’s operations out of notoriously progressive enclaves of Los Angeles and New York City and hiring more ideologically diverse people.
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