\n<\/p>\n
\n\tMore than a year after Skydance Media and its partners clinched a deal with Shari Redstone and Paramount Global to merge the companies, the FCC has yet to act on an application to approve the transfer of CBS licenses to the new ownership.<\/p>\n
\n\tEarlier this week, Skydance chief David Ellison met with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and others at the commission to lobby for their approval of the deal \u2014 and notably, Ellison promised that CBS\u2019s \u201ceditorial decision-making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThat\u2019s significant because Carr, appointed by Trump, had reopened an agency probe into a \u201cnews distortion\u201d complaint against CBS over the alleged deceptive editing of a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview with Kamala Harris segment \u2014 the same interview that Trump sued Paramount and CBS over, and which Paramount earlier two weeks ago announced it agreed to settle by paying Trump $16 million. In a Feb. 7 Fox News interview with Martha MacCallum, Carr cited Trump\u2019s lawsuit against CBS and said, the president \u201chas been right on these media bias issues.\u201d Carr continued, \u201cHe came out early and said, \u2018This thing [\u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview] looks like it has been pretty chopped up.\u2019\u201d The application of the FCC\u2019s \u201cnews distortion\u201d policy in this way was highly unusual, according to former agency officials.<\/p>\n
\n\tOn Tuesday, July 15, Ellison and his lawyer, Matthew A. Brill of Latham & Watkins, met with Carr, along with Carr\u2019s chief of staff Greg Watson and Ben Arden, special counsel in the office of the bureau chief of the FCC\u2019s Media Bureau. According to a letter from Brill posted Friday in the FCC\u2019s docket for the matter, Ellison and Brill \u201cemphasized the public interest benefits\u201d of the Skydance-Paramount transaction and \u201cWe also urged the Media Bureau to promptly grant\u201d approval of the transfer of the CBS licenses to \u201cNew Paramount.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAmong the topics Ellison and Brill discussed at the FCC meeting was Skydance\u2019s \u201ccommitment to unbiased journalism and its embrace of diverse viewpoints, principles that will ensure CBS\u2019s editorial decision-making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers.\u201d (According to CBS, Skydance played no part in the decision to cancel \u201cThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert,\u201d which was announced publicly on Thursday.)<\/p>\n
\n\tCarr, meanwhile, has championed the Trump administration\u2019s goal of eradicating diversity, equity and inclusion programs, calling DEI policies an \u201cinvidious forms of discrimination.\u201d To that end, Ellison and his lawyer \u201cnoted Skydance\u2019s commitment to promoting non-discrimination and equal employment opportunity at New Paramount, ensuring the company is fully compliant with law.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWith respect to the Skydance-Paramount transaction\u2019s \u201csignificant public interest benefits,\u201d Ellison and Brill \u201cexplained the Ellison family and RedBird represent fresh leadership with the vision and experience needed to drive New Paramount\u2019s long-term growth in the face of the challenges presented by today\u2019s media landscape, all while preserving and enhancing the legacy and broad reach of both the national CBS television network and the company\u2019s 28 owned-and-operated local television stations,\u201d per the filing.<\/p>\n
\n\tIf and when the Paramount-Skydance deal closes to create \u201cParamount Skydance Corp.,\u201d\u00a0Redstone, who is Paramount controlling shareholder, is set to exit the merged company\u2019s board. Ellison would assume the role as CEO and chairman of the combined Paramount-Skydance. The company would be controlled by the Ellison family and remain publicly traded.<\/p>\n
\n\tPictured above: David Ellison, Brendan Carr<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" More than a year after Skydance Media and its partners clinched a deal with Shari Redstone and Paramount Global to merge the companies, the FCC has yet to act on an application to approve the transfer of CBS licenses to the new ownership. Earlier this week, Skydance chief David Ellison met with FCC Chairman Brendan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[4699,999,4696,4698,4477,150,4701,4697,4695,4700],"class_list":{"0":"post-11356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-cbs","9":"tag-david","10":"tag-ellison","11":"tag-fcc","12":"tag-ideological","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-perspectives","15":"tag-pledged","16":"tag-skydance","17":"tag-varied"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}