Paramount merger with Skydance is the biggest US media shakeup in years

The $8bn merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media has finally received the Trump administration’s go-ahead and should be completed next week.

So what? This is the biggest shake-up of the US media industry in years and it’s had as many plot twists as The Usual Suspects. First mooted in December 2023, the merger became central to Donald Trump’s efforts to transform the sector and has raised concerns about editorial independence.

The background. Trump filed a $10bn lawsuit against Paramount’s CBS network in October, alleging it deceptively edited an interview with Kamala Harris to favour the Democrats. The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) then held up the merger when Trump returned to office.

Caving in. The FCC gave the deal the green light last week but only after Skydance and Paramount made several unprecedented concessions, including:

• settling the lawsuit for $16m, which will be paid to Trump’s presidential library;
• agreeing to release the transcripts of future interviews with presidential candidates on CBS’s flagship news programme 60 Minutes;
• ditching diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; and
• installing a “news ombudsman” for at least two years to police complaints of bias.

And another thing. Trump claimed the “new owners” of the company would also give him airtime worth $20m, although Paramount denied this.

On the war path. Many legal experts believe Paramount would have won the lawsuit if it had fought it. Instead it’s facing criticism for sacrificing its independence to appease the administration and win approval for the merger. FCC head Brendan Carr cheered the concessions, saying: “President Trump is fundamentally reshaping the media landscape.”

Money talks. Paramount’s owner, Shari Redstone, is keen to offload a business whose cable TV networks and streaming service are losing money. The merger with Skydance is spearheaded by David Ellison, scion of tech billionaire Larry Ellison.

The bigger picture. The saga demonstrates Trump’s ability to bully American institutions into submission. These include Columbia University, which last week agreed to pay the US government $220m to regain federal funding that was cut off over allegations it had failed to address antisemitism on its campus, where there have been several pro-Palestine protests.

Out the door. Veteran producer Bill Owens left 60 Minutes in April. Earlier this year, one of its reporters said CBS had started to “supervise our content in new ways” and that Owens had left because he “felt he had lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”

And another. Stephen Colbert, presenter of The Late Show, is on the way out too, soon after calling the $16m settlement a “big fat bribe”. Paramount called the move a cost-cutting measure.

Other fronts. Trump’s assault on the US media is not confined to CBS. He has also:

• sued the Wall Street Journal after it reported he had sent sex offender Jeffrey Epstein a lewd cartoon;
• tried to ban Associated Press reporters from the White House after the AP refused to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”; and
• cut federal funding to PBS and NPR, affecting hundreds of local news networks.

Democracy dies in darkness. Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, has told its opinion section to champion “personal liberties and free markets”. Last year the paper killed an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris. Bezos’s companies have contracts with the US federal government worth billions, which could be harmed if he crosses Trump.

Dissidents. Not everyone is falling into line. Last week, South Park’s creators signed a $1.5bn deal with Paramount. Hours later, the series began its new season with an episode blasting the CBS settlement, Colbert’s sacking and the Skydance merger. It also featured a deep fake of Trump, sweaty and nude, talking to his own penis in the desert.

What’s more… Ellison said he hadn’t watched the episode in advance. He’ll probably pay closer attention after the merger closes on 7 August.