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| Michael Buckner/Variety |
The
Wall Street Journal first reported the start of discussions over how the parties might work towards a green light of the deal announced last summer that’s been parked at the watchdog agency ever since.
Not surprisingly, one initial concession by Paramount could include the company continuing to abstain from Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts, a target of President Donald Trump and his appointed FCC chairman Brendan Carr.
The outreach last week is a rare sign of progress around the sale of Shari Redstone’s Paramount Global to David Ellison’s Skydance Media in a deal backed by Oracle co-founded and CEO Larry Ellison and RedBird Capital. The merger agreement was automatically extended earlier this month
for another 90 days pending the regulatory review.
The FCC has sway over the transfer of broadcast licenses, which would apply here to the parent of CBS. The commission has launched investigations of Disney and NBCUniversal parent Comcast over DEI practices.
Carr told Bloomberg last month, “Any businesses that are looking for FCC approval, I would encourage them to get busy ending any sort of their invidious forms of DEI discrimination.” Paramount Global along with other media companies has walked back and recast work in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.
The merger process has rattled CBS News, as Redstone, Paramount Global’s controlling shareholder, is said to be anxious to close the transaction. Paramount Global has had settlement talks with Trump’s legal team to resolve the president’s $20 billion lawsuit against the network over the way that 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris. Many legal observers see the lawsuit as frivolous, but a settlement also been viewed as a way to appease the president at a time when the companies need the administration’s greenlight for the merger.
Things came to a head last week, when 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens resigned, citing corporate interference. Just about each week since Trump took office, the show has produced hard hitting pieces about various aspects of the administration, and the president has lashed out at the network over some of them. 60 Minutes planned another piece for Sunday, April 27 over the Trump administration cuts to the National Institutes of Health.
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