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Paramount, Skydance Merger Wins FCC Approval
Posted
July 25, 2025
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July 25, 2025
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5:07Now PlayingBrian Wieser, Principal at Madison & Wall, discusses the Skydance-Paramount deal gaining FCC approval.
Paramount Global’s merger with Skydance Media was approved by the US Federal Communications Commission, which backed the deal after the Trump administration extracted concessions on the news and entertainment company’s political coverage and diversity practices.
As part of the accord, Skydance vowed to ensure that the new company’s programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Thursday in a statement. Paramount will employ an ombudsman for two years to evaluate complaints of bias.
“I welcome Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network,” Carr said in the statement. FCC members voted 2-1 to approve the deal, with Democrat Anna Gomez opposing.
Skydance Media, led by David Ellison, agreed last July to take control of Paramount, the parent of CBS, MTV and its namesake Hollywood film studio, after months of tumultuous negotiations with Shari Redstone, whose family has run the business for decades. Ellison, the son of Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison, beat out other suitors including Sony Group Corp. and liquor heir Edgar Bronfman Jr.
As part of the approval, the company recently committed to ending diversity, equity and inclusion practices. That will ensure “the combined business will enact policies and practices consistent with the law and the public interest,” said Carr, who was appointed by President Donald Trump.
Shares of Paramount rose about 1.5% in extended trading after the announcement.
The vote concludes a review that dragged on due to opposition from other interested buyers and the Center for American Rights, a nonprofit law firm that has accused Paramount’s CBS News division of skewing its coverage to benefit the political left. The group suggested that approval require an independent ombudsman to field news bias complaints — which Paramount agreed to voluntarily — and the staffing of editorial operations in cities other than New York and Los Angeles.
Carr, a vocal supporter of Trump, had suggested his review would include a look at how CBS handled the Kamala Harris interview that prompted a lawsuit by the president. Carr also said he would look at “invidious” forms of discrimination reflected in media companies’ diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
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